


Archaeologist's Guide to the Galaxy

by milka121



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alienleo, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Comedy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-inspired AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-08 05:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13451721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milka121/pseuds/milka121
Summary: To be honest, the Rolance Empire was not even remotely living up to its name.Or, a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-inspired AU in which Sorey is a prince, Alisha is a princess, Lailah is a robot and Mikleo is confused.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY! After half a year of writing, rewriting, writer's block phases and randoms spurs of inspiration, this fic is dooone. I just need to revise the next chapters and I will be able to post them.  
> Which will be done... soon. Probably.  
> This is my first attempt at making a story that's actually a bit more complicated that a one-shot, so I would appreciate if you told me your opinion in the comments.  
> Kudos to [Neodiji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoDiji/pseuds/NeoDiji) and [Kuraino](https://kurainosousuke.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing and supporting me. Love you, sisters ❤

To be honest, the Rolance Empire was not even remotely living up to its name.

It was a planet. A whole single planet, the emperor liked to emphasize, but one planet nonetheless. Which is, well, kind of unimpressive if you call yourself an empire. But it wasn’t like they weren't trying to expand their territory - they were almost always at war with the nearby Hyland Empire (which was also a single planet, albeit it had a diameter just a few kilometers wider than Rolance, Hyland’s emperor liked to emphasize.) It was not entirely clear as to why these two nations hated each other with so much burning passion; they simply did. People of Rolance hated people of Hyland from the moment they had developed enough of a strong telescope to look at each other from afar and start threatening each other for no particular reason. But, well, they had a reputation to uphold, and that other planet looked like it would really be a nice place for a summer house, you know?

They were small planets with big ambitions. Probably to finally kill the other off. Maybe to rule the whole universe, when we are at that.

But as the only two planets in the whole Glenwood Galaxy which haven’t yet realized that democracy could be a little bit more just for the proletariat than the regime controlled by a few hideously rich families (from which the richest became the emperor) for centuries, Rolance and Hyland Empires decided to form a (temporarily) pact they called “The Intergalactic Federation of The One and Only True Rulers of The Universe” (an extraordinary and a proud name, considering there were only two members in total.) The fact that, as the dictionary stated, a ‘federation’ had to have only one central government to rule the other parts, was ignored. A few days later any trace of that ‘disinformation’ was precisely removed from every dictionary on both planets. So federation it was.

As any big contract between two sumptuous, yet mediocre planets, it absolutely had to be sealed by some marriage, just so the rulers could get drunk together and threaten each other with their newest weapons of mass destruction. The happy couple-to-be were chosen: Princess Alisha Diphda from the Hyland Empire and Prince Sorey from the Rolance Empire.

It is worth noting that, as much as they were both outstandingly righteous young adults, they were also not-quite-legal descendants from the commoners mothers. So, you see, that wasn’t that much big of a deal. For the rulers, at least, because neither the Princess nor the Prince were particularly overjoyed by the news of being married off without a warning.

They were allowed to meet before the wedding, though - a rare occurrence for the royal families. (The lack of knowledge of just how horrible of a person your future spouse is minimizes the odds of one of the fiances running away screaming, it seems.)

It took Sorey and Alisha a whole of two seconds to realize that they had exactly zero romantic interest in each other. It might or might not have been connected to how Alisha has turned into a bubbling mess after Rose, Sorey’s bodyguard, has winked at her playfully and how Sorey eyed the soldiers training next to the garden they were sitting in with just a little bit too much attentiveness to simply be admiring their combat skills.

So when the time of the wedding finally came, Sorey nonchalantly asked his father for some ‘uhhh, cool battleship’ as a wedding present - just so he could have a good presentation, he said. Heldalf couldn’t quite believe his ears; his son (his _illegitimate_ son, but still a son nonetheless) has finally grown up enough to start killing and destroying things for fun as he himself did back in the good old days. He presented Sorey the best interstellar killing machine the Rolance Empire has ever produced with true fatherly tears in his eyes.

Sorey faked a grateful laugh at that; he received the blessing and congratulations from his closest family members and with just a little shaky voice asked if he could take Alisha on the quick ride in ‘the, uhhh, cool battleship’ before the wedding. You know, just for fun!

No one had the heart to say no to Sorey’s pleading face, of course.

Ten seconds later Alisha, Sorey and the rest of their confidential crew were in another star system, going as far from their mother planets as it was possible without breaking any laws of physics. (Or maybe they did break a few? Rolance’s spaceships were kind of infamous for attempting to do that, and in a few incomprehensible instances, succeeding.)

To Rolance’s and Hyland’s credit, their rulers quickly got themselves together. Their PR workers did a truly marvelous job at fabricating a heartbreaking story of the Princess’s and Prince’s ongoing love affair with each other which absolutely required them to leave their fatherlands. It was so unbelievable that everyone believed them instantly.

So, here they were, floating in space far away from their homes, without a place to go to.

At least the battleship was decent enough to have a micro-ecosystem in which they could probably exist until the end of their lives if needed. Not that they wanted to, especially, but that was an option as good as any, considering what they have been through. And that the crew, consisting of a few of their friends, was really nice to be with.

When they weren’t doing stupid shit, that is.

“Hey, Sorey! What’s up?!” Rose sent him a bright, wide smile. She leaned on the door frame and giggled. Her laugh was way too sweet to be natural.

Sorey closed the Celestial Record and put it back on its place on the shelf above his bed. “You broke the engine again?”

“I didn’t break it, it just _broke_ ,” she murmured, the smirk fading on her face. “I just wanted to go faster.”

“Why?” Sorey asked and stood up. Rose was already on her way, leading Sorey to the machine-room. “It’s not like we are in a hurry, right?”

Rose murmured something under her breath. Sorey conveniently heard that it started with ‘A’ and ended with ‘a’, but that did not exactly help him understand what she was talking about, so he decided against pressuring her into repeating what she has said.

He shook his head and instead focused on not tripping down the black stairs to the machine-room.

Honestly, nearly everything in the ship was either dark black, bloody red, or a depressing shade of violet. Not that Sorey didn’t like these colors in particular, they were simply making the insides of the battleship look even darker and gloomier than it already was. In a literal sense, because it was hard for Sorey to see where he was going when they were walking in darkness down the black stairs. The head engineer has probably forgotten to add some lamps in here - or it was yet another brilliant example of Rolance’s attempts of postmodernist design.

They managed to arrive at their destination without breaking each other’s necks or accidentally activating any of the traps installed on the ship. Lailah was convincing them that she has taken care of everything, but once in a while one of them was unfortunate enough to meet face to face with some forgotten small poisonous dart or a pocket bomb. (As to who could invent such a thing as a pocket bomb, it was probably some royal scientist. Sorey’s father loved that stuff.)

Sorey took a look at the big black box (what a surprise) with a green crystal glowing mysteriously inside. He had no idea how that worked, but since it did up to this point, he wasn’t exactly paying attention to that specific part of the engine which probably propelled the rest of the spaceship, somehow. “It looks good to me,” he said.

Rose shook her head. “No, something is definitely wrong. Sometimes it-”

The bloodcurdling screech filled the room, loud enough for Sorey to seriously consider jumping to one of the emergency escape pods on the wall and getting as far away as possible.

Sorey swallowed. “Okay, you’re right.”

Rose nodded. “So, well, help me?”

Sorey sent her a blank stare. “What? You don’t know how to fix this thing?”

She stared back. “ _You_ don’t?”

They looked at each other for a few seconds and then they simultaneously turned their heads towards the big screen on the wall. “Lailah!”

The sound of a loud, yet delicate yawn was heard in the room as the screen flickered and came to life, showing a woman in a long, white night dress stretching her body sleepily. She winked at them. “Mm, you woke me up,” she murmured, sitting up and tossing her white hair to the side, seemingly trying to braid them. The fact that she didn’t have any tangles in her hair was either a miraculous coincidence or a sign of being a simulation.

Rose’s brows drew together in confusion. “Lailah, you are an AI. You _don’t_ sleep.”

The woman pouted. “Rose, that’s rude!” Her hair put itself up in a high ponytail, and her clothes changed into a somewhat more appropriate white and red dress. Not that Sorey minded, in contrast to Rose.

“Okay, okay,” Rose put her hands up in defense, “sorry for waking you up. We kind of have an issue here.”

“Oh, which issue?” Lailah innocently inspected her fingernails.

“Lailah.” Rose glared. “You are literally the soul of this ship. You _know_ which issue.”

Lailah huffed. “You are no fun, Rose!”

“So, Lailah,” Sorey said before Rose could bark something back, “can you please help us with this? We don’t exactly know what to do.”

Lailah sent him a bright smile, showing off all of her perfect, shining teeth.

“Now that’s a true gentleman!” she hooted. “Of course I can help you, dears.” Rose snickered somewhere in the background and crossed her arms, the scowl on her face making her look like a whiny child. Which probably wasn’t so far from the truth, given that it was the middle of the night (if you can call that ‘a night’ in space) and Rose would be much happier sleeping now.

“Hmm,” Lailah murmured, blinking a few times and probably analyzing the spaceship’s data, “there seems to be a bit of a problem here… But don’t worry, a simple reboot should fix it all.”

“Simple what?” Sorey asked. Learning the basic computer terms was not a part of his royal upbringing. (Interestingly so, fighting with swords, daggers, spears, blasters and everything else shiny and deadly was.)

“I’ll turn everything off and then on again,” Lailah explained patiently in her melodic voice. “There’s nothing to worry about! It should take a few seconds, and everything will be as good as new.” She smiled at them reassuringly and then, without a warning, everything went off.

They were alone in the darkness for a second.

And another.

And another one.

Rose coughed.

“Lailah?” Sorey asked the darkness. It didn’t reply.

Sorey felt himself slowly becoming lighter and lighter - or more precisely, he felt the ship-inducted artificial gravity disappearing. If he could see anything, he would probably see Rose floating just next to him, trying to make her hair not go everywhere it wanted to. He would also probably see Rose’s face becoming more green with each passing moment. She has never liked the feeling of her insides moving like that in weightlessness.

And then, the whole ship shuddered and jerked, sending them screaming into the walls.

“What the hell?!” Rose yelled while trying to figure out how to move when you can’t tell apart up and down.

The panels on the walls lightened up with a red words written on them - never a good sign. Especially if the words were: “System overload, please switch to manual” and “Sorey, we are right next to the black hole and I don’t know how we got here but, please, press that big, glowing red button on the control panel below before we get shredded into the elementary particles in 5…”

Wait, there was a count-down?

...4… What?

...3… WHAT?!

...2…

Sorey panicked.

He located the button and with all his strength he bounced off from the wall, forgot about Newton’s second law, and collided painfully with the panel, probably pressing all of the shining buttons with his body. (He launched a dozen nuclear bombs into various directions by that. But don’t worry, they were all sucked in by the black hole and lacerated before they could make any mortal damage to anyone. Probably.)

He pressed all of the shining buttons except the one he was actually supposed to press, that is.

...1…

He flung his fist and smashed that big, glowing red button just before his eyes.

BEEP. A deep, loud beep. _A good one? Bad one? Both?!_

After the next second full of nervous silence, the lights decided to take mercy on them and finally turned on. The gravity yanked him back on the floor properly. Sorey sighed with relief at the same moment in which the panels started to display various error messages, and Lailah’s face appeared on the screen.

Sorey didn’t know the AI could look distressed until this moment.

“Sorry,” she murmured and puffed their spaceship away from the danger as quickly as it was possible. “I didn’t think that the system would just refuse what I wanted to do… I’m still not compatible enough with it, I’m afraid.”

“No problem,” Sorey shook his head.

“No _problem_?” Rose managed to get up from the floor. “Sorey, we might have died! And also killed everyone else!”

“Well, technically there was no danger of being sucked into the black hole; you see, we weren’t even close to the middle of it, I was just afraid that the time-space perception for us would change and we would be quite literally _frozen in space_ …” Lailah giggled, “...and time.”

Rose looked at her with disbelief. Sorey tilted his head. “So, the counting…”

“Oh, that?” Lailah’s eyes sparkled. “That was a _joke_!” She looked at them, pride written all over her face and eyes darting from Rose to Sorey, as if she was expecting them to laugh at it with her.

“Hah…” Sorey made an attempt at faking a laugh. He failed. Quite horribly so, because even the AI cringed a little.

“Uh, don’t do that again,” Rose said. Sorey obediently bowed his head.

“Lailah?” Sorey asked.

The AI’s virtual eyes focused on Sorey.

“Can you please report to me the condition of the ship and the crew?”

“Of course, Captain.” Lailah flashed him a smile, and Sorey blushed a little. Lailah insisted on calling him that - it was his spaceship, after all, and Lailah was keen on following procedures when she deemed it funny. “The ship is undamaged! I managed to erase the bug which was making all of that fuss as well. As for the crew, Alisha is sleeping in her cabin and Dezel is moping around in the kitchen and appears to be cooking something.”

Rose sighed with relief. “At least the princess is safe.”

It has been only a few days since their… departure (Alisha consequently refused to call it ‘an escape’ or ‘a flight’, and Sorey stuck to that), but Rose had already made friends with Alisha. On the other hand, the term ‘make friends’ probably did not apply here entirely, since when making friends one does not usually plan on marrying the other person, and Rose was clearly having such ideas. She had told that to Sorey, after all, between lines like: “She’s so cute!” and “I’m going to protect her no matter what, you hear me?” and “God, have you seen her-”

Rose was definitely not a person who was easily stopped in her tracks.

“Why is Dezel cooking in the middle of the night?” Sorey asked no one in particular.

“Maybe he just wants to make us a midnight snack,” Rose suggested. “Or he’s bored, I dunno. He’s weird.”

Sorey agreed with this in his mind. It’s one thing when you are like Rose and just so happen to overshare your thoughts a few more times than is probably acceptable; it’s a whole other business when you suddenly appear on the spaceship - a stolen spaceship that just so happens to hold the escaped princess and prince, declare that you were there all along and demand permission to stay. The fact that Dezel was able to successfully argue with an AI program was also quite admirable. As were his cooking skills. After a quick glance at each other (and devouring a lot of memorable brownies,) Sorey, Alisha and Rose decided to let Dezel stay with them.

It wasn’t like they had a lot of things to do, either. The more the merrier, as they say. Sorey could only bear being with Lailah so much (Rose and Alisha were usually occupied by each other too much to pay attention to Sorey). It wasn’t like he didn’t like Lailah - quite the opposite, to be honest - but she knew a little bit too much about him for Sorey’s comfort.

He’d gotten her as a birthday present when he’d had turned thirteen - she was supposed to be his ‘personal assistant’, as the Emperor used to call it. Her role was probably to educate him enough to not let him be a complete moron and answer all of his questions about… _things_. And while we are at that, she was probably meant for a little bit more than just being a second player needed to complete the puzzle in one of his video games, since back then she had an android body made with so much care and detail it was easy to forget that she was actually an AI. But somewhere along the tracks, she totally forgot what she was probably supposed to be doing in the first place, and evolved into a hybrid of a mother and an older sister everyone loved.

Sorey could only sigh with relief at that.

Still, it was weird to be talking all the time to a person who knew you better than you knew yourself. (And who knew, well… Let’s just say Lailah was fully aware of what Sorey was searching on the Net in the middle of the night.) The only thing she couldn’t quite understand was the human’s sense of humor, but she was working on it. In her own ways.

Well, anyway… Sorey was overjoyed that at least one person on the ship was not only a total stranger, but also a totally different species than they were. Because Dezel was a seraph. Which, well, didn’t tell Sorey much, but he was determined to learn, especially since Dezel managed to exist on the spaceship without anyone noticing him for so long. Seraphim were known to be an odd and still uncharted race; they didn’t like humans and humans researchers, so they usually politely asked them to leave until their patience ran out. The said researchers never come back home.

Seraphim were mysterious creatures, and not much was known about them anyway… Besides from what was written in the Celestial Record, that is, and what was researched by the scientists who actually respected the seraphim culture on Elysia.

Sorey yawned.

“Oh, I forgot!” Lailah gasped. “Sorry, Captain! I should have remembered that you humans need your healthy dose of sleep to be able to function properly for the next day. I would advise you to go back to bed, right now. Rose, you too.”

Lailah’s voice rang in his ears. Sorey could only nod again in response. He rubbed his eyes, the fatigue suddenly sinking back into his body.

Lailah looked at him with this half-interested, half-admiring expression she usually wore when she thought the humans were endearing. “Now, shoo! Go to your cabins, everyone!” she said, her voice carrying through the rest of the ship through the speakers.

Sorey thought he heard Dezel yelling angrily at Lailah before he tumbled into his room, got out of his full-body suit (also black), and buried himself in the soft covers. This day was… a little bit too much for a prince who’d never really had to deal with anything more important than the court etiquette.

He fell asleep fast enough not to think about it all too much. But maybe he should have.

* * *

Somewhere in space, a small, completely insignificant planet received a message.

Somewhere in space, its inhabitants responded.

* * *

“Sorey.” Someone tugged at his covers. Sorey groaned.

“Now, don’t be like that,” the voice persisted. Rose. “Hey, Sorey. Heeeey.”

Sorey turned on another side. “Gimme a second,” he murmured with a sleepy voice. He prayed with his dozy mind that Rose would be understanding enough to let him stay in bed for a few moments longer.

As always, she wasn’t. She yanked the covers from his bed unceremoniously; the chilly air attacked the exposed parts of his body, stealing away any remains of the warmth and forcing him to finally open his eyes to glare at Rose. It is also worth remembering that the temperature on the ship was controlled by the ‘Mother Computer’ - which, at that moment, was Lailah - so the AI had to be conspiring with Rose to sabotage Sorey’s day right from the start.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Rose barked and put her hands on her hips in her usual intimidating pose, which was telling Sorey that if he makes just one more comment she will surely order a long, tiring training session for the prince. She was his friend, but first and foremost, she was a person whose responsibility was to keep him alive.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he murmured and sat up on his bed. He yawned and stretched his arms.

“Get dressed and go to the dining room,” Rose said. “We have an emergency.”

There was not a trace of joke in her voice. Sorey looked at her with confusion.

“What do you mean, emergency?”

Rose gave him a long, piercing look. “Dining room,” she repeated. “Lailah requested we meet there so she can inform us about the situation more freely.” She spun around on her heel and left the room without any more words of explanation.

That was enough to wake Sorey up completely. While dressing (well, it was just putting on the newly washed suit. Viva la future!) Sorey’s mind went through all of the possible scenarios. What could have gone wrong? What could have happened to make Rose look so stark and uptight all of a sudden? It couldn’t be _really_ urgent - they would have woken him up if it was. Probably. At least, that’s what he asked Lailah to do in case of any accidents. (The first day after his request she started giving him reports about everything, absolutely _everything_ that was a little bit deviating from the norm and could possibly end in an exceptionally tragic and spectacular way, which ended pretty quickly in Sorey begging Lailah back to try to prioritize the information. She looked confused at that - because everything was equally important to her, it seemed - but she eventually stopped reporting to him things like the possibility of them vanishing into the thin air for no apparent reason.)

So, Sorey had absolutely no idea what was going on when he walked into the dining room and sat a this place at the round table. And no one seemed like they wanted to talk, too; Rose was sitting with her arms crossed on her chest, her face unreadable. Dezel… Dezel was mimicking Rose’s pose. Or maybe Rose was mimicking his?

Alisha was the only one to react to his arrival. She raised her head up and sent him a bright, even if a little bit tired, smile. He nodded in response. Despite the fact that they met in… well, not-so-appealing circumstances, they managed to find some thread of understanding, and Sorey would go as far as to call them ‘friends’.

Running away together does wonders to bond people together, it seemed.

“Hello, crew!” Lailah’s face appeared on the screen on the wall just in front of Sorey. Advantages of having the Captain spot at the table. “Well, it looks like we are all here! Unless, of course, Dezel forgot to tell us about someone on the ship.”

Dezel snorted. “I don’t need to tell you anything,” he said, his voice deep and rich; Sorey still hasn’t got used to how it sounded.

Rose looked like she was repressing the urge not to throw something heavy at the seraph.

“We-ell,” Lailah continued, prolonging the ‘e’ in the middle, “we are here today because of an… emergency!” She threw her hands in the nonexistent air around her. “Captain, we have bad news and bad news! Which one would you like to hear first?”

Sorey tilted his head. “Shouldn’t it usually be one good and one bad piece of news to choose from?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they are both bad.” Lailah’s mouth quirked into a smile. “But I can quickly fabricate some good news for you if you would like!”

“Uh, that won’t be necessary. Thank you.” Sorey shifted nervously in his chair. “Can you start with the, uh, less dreadful one?”

“Of course!” Lailah giggled, her cheerful voice contrasting with the silence that has settled between the crew. “Well, here it goes: the engine is, in fact, still broken! Yesterday, I managed to rewrite the bug out of the system, but I wasn't able to repair the part of the machine that was smashed into pieces by a hammer. Congratulations, Rose, you damaged the core that was designed to be undamageable!”

Dezel snickered. “Rose, you still fuck up things to impress your girlfriend?”

“Dezel, you still _blind_?” Rose only knew him for a dew days, but that didn’t stop her from learning all of his weak points and insecurities. It comes with the job, she would say if asked. But nobody did. Watching her tease Dezel was far too entertaining.

“Attention, please!” Lailah gesticulated wildly, trying to make them concentrate back on her. “The second message is as much important, if not more!” She held a hand to her mouth and whispered: “You see, it’s _personal_.”

That was enough to catch their attention. Alisha’s eyes widened in fear.

“What?” she asked. “Does that mean… they have found us already?!” Alisha bit her lip. Rose glanced at her fleetingly and moved her own hand over Alisha’s, squeezing her fingers with reassurance.

“Oh, no!” Lailah objected quickly. “No, no, we are still safe from any form of Rolance or Hyland’s imperial forces. But, back to the topic… It’s actually quite funny!” She giggled, as to emphasize the point. No one laughed with her. Dauntless, she continued: “I think it’s worth celebrating! Sorey,” her head turned to looked at said human with endless glee, “you have just gotten married!”

Sorey stared at Lailah.

That was the moment when one would ‘hear the fly flying around the room’ or someone should drop a small object on the floor. As there was no such organisms as flies on the ship, and no one from the crew was holding anything, the simple silence had to suffice.

Sorey licked his lips. “What?”

“Married!” Lailah hooted. “Well, not _exactly_ , but your proposal was accepted!”

Sorey blinked. “What proposal?”

“The one you sent last night!” Lailah pouted as if she was disappointed with his reaction, but she quickly got herself together. “Well, do not worry! Even I needed some time to understand it.”

That only made Sorey more confused. “Understand what?”

“Last night, as you probably recall, you beautifully smashed your whole body onto the control panel,” Lailah reminded him. “Turns out, you sent an illegible message into space! I ignored it, since it was, you know, illegible. But it wasn’t illegible for them, it seems! They managed to decode from what spaceship it was sent from, and this is _your_ ship with a clear sign of the Rolance Empire, so-”

“But _who?_ ” Sorey asked the same second Rose snapped:

“Are you fucking serious?”

Lailah sent her a stare full of disapproval. Yet, when she turned her head to look back at Sorey, she managed to smile even wider than before.

Sorey was becoming more and more creeped out with each passing second.

“The seraphim,” Lailah answered him.

Sorey needed a second to process that.

And then, all eyes turned on Dezel.

“What?” Dezel barked. If the readers want to know how the hell Dezel knew that people were suddenly looking at him despite him being blind, the answer is: no one really knows. Dezel himself was not sure. Must be something about being a mysterious, undefined creature from the depths of the universe.

“You proposed to Elysia’s heir, to be exact,” Lailah clarified, again calling their attention back to her. “So it’s not so bad of a choice overall, Sorey.”

It was not even remotely close enough to be called a ‘choice’, but Sorey felt too overwhelmed to argue about it. He swallowed nervously. “But… why did they _accept_ ? I am… uh, I am _believed_ to be married by now! To Alisha!”

Alisha and Rose both shifted in their places.

“Sorey,” Lailah started, “the news does not spread that quickly.”

Sorey looked at her with confusion. “It doesn’t? But… But wasn’t our marriage-” both Sorey and Alisha winced at that expression “-going to be broadcasted to the whole universe via the Net?”

“It may come as a surprise to you, but some planets manage to live and prosper without using the spying, totalitarian-like tool which monitors your every little move,” Lailah replied cheerfully. “Elysia is one of the rebel planets not connected to the Net! Probably to avoid the whole population getting mad and dying out of shame.”

Sorey nodded. The whole race getting extinct because of the Net would not be anything new.

Lailah continued: “They will have to wait for a while more for the news to reach them the old-fashioned way. In probably less than a whole Rolance’s month they will surely be aware… But that won’t matter anyway, right?”

“Right,” Sorey agreed. “Then, Lailah, do you think we can… You know, try to explain to them that we didn’t really meant it?”

“Of course! But it would be rude to bring it to them via message when they have already agreed to the marriage, so I have changed the course so that we are heading to them! Of course we can change it at any second if you wish so. But just in case, I thought I would do some research on their culture and marriage rituals…” Lailah blinked at him. “ _Jus_ t in case.”

Sorey ignored the innuendo.

“I was hoping for your help here, Dezel.” Lailah looked at the seraph with a bright smile he would never see. “You are the first seraph I have heard of that is roaming freely around the universe, so your knowledge would be crucial for us to understand your culture - for ours, and Sorey’s sake.”

Dezel snorted. “Why should I help you?”

“Oh, you don’t need to, if you really do not want to!” Lailah reassured him. “I just wanted to verify a few things so that we won’t make any _faux pas_. And… the knowledge of the technicalities about your mating habits would also be very useful, for Sorey in particular.”

Alisha nearly choked on the sole air. As did Sorey. Only, he was the only one who actually succeeded at that; he started coughing and desperately trying to do so as discreetly as possible. Which, well, didn’t help much. All eyes were on him in a second. He tried to hide his embarrassment. (Key word: ‘tried’.)

“I… I don’t think it will be necessary,” Sorey said when he finally got a hold of himself. “We are going to Elysia just to clear up the misunderstanding, after all.”

“Well, it would probably be a good idea to repair the engine when we’ll be there,” Rose interjected. She was starting to feel a little bit more responsible with each error she caused. “I mean, if we would be on the ground already, why not?”

Lailah nodded. “Yes, yes! I was going to propose that - we really need a repair, Captain. I’m waiting for your orders.”

Sorey looked around - at Lailah’s cheerful smile, Rose’s furrowed brow, Dezel’s scowl and Alisha’s worried look.

“Well, I don’t see a reason why we should  not pay Elysia a visit,” he replied.

“Understood,” Lailah said. And then, a smug expression appeared on her face. Her eyes wandered to the only seraph sitting at the table. “So tell me, Dezel…”

* * *

Mikleo carefully watched his reflection in the mirror. He still couldn’t get used to his appearance being like this. He frowned experimentally, watching how the muscles of his face moved and shaped yet another expression. Fascinating. Humans were so complicated with their differential expressions, every small shiver of the tissue signalizing something completely distinct from the other ones. And the eyes? The glistening, wet orbs with the violet rim of his iris around the black spot of pupil? Genius. Mikleo brought a hand - his _human_ hand - to his face and carefully tried to touch the orb.

“Ouch!”

“What are you doing, Meebo?”

Mikleo rubbed his watery eye and turned around to glance at Edna. She smirked at him with an amused look on her face. At least, Mikleo believed that it was an amused look. Or maybe it was a pained face? Mikleo would have to check on that later.

“Just... testing,” he replied. “I want them to be at ease when we meet.”

“You want _him_ to be at ease.” Edna waggled her eyebrows; Mikleo didn’t need to know the human’s body language to figure out she was making fun of him. He rolled his eyes. ( _Annoyance_ , he reminded himself, _displeasure or boredom._ )

“Edna, please. You know as well as I do that-”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted him. “Sorry, Meebo. Just trying to lighten the mood.” She pulled on the strap of her dress - yellow and white, accenting her blonde hair and fair complexion. “This is ridiculous. Humans are such a primitive species, they haven’t even figured out how to make their garments comfortable yet.”

“Maybe you are just oversensitive.”

“Maybe.” Edna frowned. “Damn it, I’m turning back.” She shook her head and in another second, in place of a short girl there was a ball of light in a dull shade of yellow. “ _Much better_ ,” Mikleo heard.

“Edna, you can’t let yourself be seen by them like that.”

“ _Why not? They should respect us, too._ ”

“It’s not about respect, it’s about… About hierarchy.” Mikleo pursed his lips. “However you look at it, we are the one who require their help, not the other way around. It’s a wonder they proposed something like that at all. So we have to accommodate them.”

Edna fell silent. Her light pulsed sharply, showing something between irritation and… concern? Mikleo wasn’t sure. Edna has always been hard to read, no matter in which form.

“ _We can still try to call it off_ ,” her words rung in Mikleo’s brain, surprisingly gentle. “ _Zenrus is not cruel. He will understand if you-_ ”

“No,” Mikleo cut her out sharply. “We need this. Elysia needs this. There is our only chance to have an alliance with Rolance; we can’t risk the alternative.” The words felt heavy on his tongue. He couldn’t tell how much of that was his inexperience with using the human’s organs of speech and how much was the meaning of the words he was saying. “It’s better that way.”

He saw the reflection of Edna in the mirror shift back into the form of a human girl. “Whatever you say, Meebo,” she said with a sigh. “That good-for-nothing prince will probably leave you alone when he gets bored. But by that time you will be married, the alliance sealed, and Elysia will have a warranty of protection.”

Mikleo nodded and he locked eyes with her reflection in the mirror. “Thank you.”

“Oh, Meebo is getting sappy,” Edna snickered. “Are you sure you don’t want to elope with me?”

“No, thank you.” Mikleo raised his chin with a hint of a smile on his lips. “I’m pretty sure you would turn out to be much more hellish than Prince Sorey could ever be.”

“Why, Meebo, you are hurting my feelings.” Edna huffed at him and sent him one more look before she turned around. “You’re going to go to Mayvin’s place later?”

“Of course,” Mikleo said. “What else I’m supposed to do?” He didn’t plan on letting it out sounding as bitter as it did. Edna turned her head and once again, gave him a long, careful look.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She broke the eye contact and started walking towards the exit. “You know where to find me, in case.”

Mikleo suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Good, the human habits were already rubbing off on him. “Of course.”

“Don’t forget we have to meet today to make you some decent human outfits. You have to sweep the prince off his feet, and right to his bed.” She halted her walk. “That’s the expression, right?”

Mikleo laughed under his breath. “Not exactly, but good work remembering at least one useful figure of speech.”

“Hm.” Edna seemed unfazed. “Already one more than I expected.” She shook her head. “Ugh, all that bad influence is finally affecting me. I spent way too much time with Mayvin. And babysitting you.”

“I could say the same, you know.”

“No, you couldn’t, _Meebo_. I’m a gift.”

“You are an embodiment of annoyance.”

“Weirdo.”

“Shorty.”

“Human-lover.”

Mikleo stopped, his eyes focusing somewhere on Edna’s turned back. It stung to hear it phrased like that, more than he anticipated it would. He had always liked humans and their culture; he even managed to convince Zenrus to let one of their kind stay with them. Mayvin had been teaching Mikleo all about the world from the moment Mikleo could gather enough of his courage to ask the human questions he desperately needed the answers to: about the origin of the ruins scattered all over Elysia no seraph knew who had built, about the other planets and stars full of wonders Mikleo couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was a shame that Mayvin couldn’t stay for long enough on Elysia to satisfy Mikleo’s curiosity. Mikleo really loved humans, scientifically speaking.

And now, he was going to become a human lover, in the most literal sense, and not out of his own will.

He smiled bitterly. “Ironic, isn’t it? Bet you can have a good laugh out of that.”

Edna shifted in place. “I would laugh at it if it was funny.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.” Edna’s voice dropped, suddenly quieter and completely un-Edna like. “I really don’t think it is.”

Mikleo stared at her back - human back, a costume she got into to look presentable for the people they knew nothing about beside the fact that they could probably destroy them with a flick of their human hands if they so much as wished to.

Mikleo felt sick.

“See you soon,” Edna murmured and left him alone with his thoughts.

...For a second.

She poked her head back in. “You know, at least you will have a chance to finally mate with someone.”

He huffed and threw the nearest object at her, feeling the heat creep up on his cheeks. ( _Embarrassment._ )

* * *

“Attention, crew!” Lailah’s overjoyed voice poured from the speakers, making Sorey jump on his bed in surprise. He hit the wall with his head and groaned. Through the sparks of the pain, he heard Lailah continue: “We are finally approaching the Elysia System, after the long and tiring journey lasting about… all two hours! The system, as you already know, consists of a total one planet, Elysia, and one star which the seraphim haven't yet decided what to name! I would highly advise you to revise your newly obtained knowledge and if needed, ask me any question about whether or not to do something.” She giggled. “Advise to revise, you get it? It rhymes!” She sounded amused at her own… creation. Sorey wouldn’t call that a joke. It would be an insult to humanity’s greatest evolutionary achievement that the sense of humor was. “Well, Lailah out!”

Sorey rubbed his head. He sent one, long look at the Celestial Record in his hands. Guess he would not be able to finish reading the book today. (Not that Sorey really _needed_ to finish reading it - he has already memorized most of it. It was one of a few books that the Emperor of Rolance didn’t ban and burned at the stake, so when Sorey wanted to read anything in his country, he had to choose between this and some cheesy romance novels. He liked the Celestial Record better. Well, he liked both, but the point stood.)

The report that Lailah gave him about an hour ago laid neatly folded at his side. He didn’t need to check it again. One time was enough. More than enough.

It seemed Lailah had to blackmail Dezel into talking (at least that was what Sorey deduced from Dezel’s screams coming from the kitchen) - but she has emerged victorious from the fight and sent Sorey the full compendium of the Elysia’s civilization and culture.

With a whole chapter dedicated to their marriage and… mating habits. _Very scientific_ , Sorey thought when he had opened the folder for the first (and the last) time. He had been hesitating before whether to read this or just pretend to do so, but in the end, his curiosity won.

And it has turned out to be… not so dreadful read as he worried it would.

It was, well, _scientific_. In the good way. Lailah didn’t drag it out or put her puns in the document; she simply wrote down an objective set of information about the seraphim, and what she predicted they would do based on their cultural background, as described by Dezel. She also did try to connect it to the overall environment of their planet to make it easier to understand.

Lailah even noted why the seraphim could, and sometimes willingly choose to marry the members of other species, though it was a rather rare instance because of Elysia’s strict stance on other civilizations. (‘Hatred’ would be a too strong word, but one gets wary when the only contacts with the other civilizations end up in war, biological pollution or various epidemics. Like the Malevolence.)

The marriages between the seraphim and non-seraphim were allowed and could be consumed because the seraphim had an ability to breed with other kinds of organisms of the universe. A pretty useful skill indeed if your sun was like a deadly laser and had a habit of going into long-time phases of intense radiation, effectively bringing numerous species of the planet orbiting around it to extinction. (Elysia was a rather harsh place to live, it seemed.) The explanation as to why they have evolved that way was Lailah’s hypothesis. To not be vanished from the face of their planet, she wrote, the seraphim adapted, developing a system that allowed their species to survive even if only one of them would survive. The seraphim, as Dezel confirmed, were sexless ( _not genderless_ , Lailah stressed, _but most of them do not care about such nuances anyway_ ) and could reproduce with most of the species in the universe, creating an offspring that would still be nearly genetically identical to the seraph.

 _Fascinating_ , Sorey thought.

Somewhere along the way, evolution decided the seraphim needed a shape-shifting ability as well, making the seraphim able to adapt almost to anything. Probably to lure the other races and mimic other kinds of mating rituals if they needed to. Lailah wasn’t sure about that, but Sorey agreed with her that the system would probably be more efficient that way. Just imagine the shapeless blob of shining ectoplasm trying to seduce someone. Or some _thing._

The loud knocking on his door brought Sorey back to earth. (Can you use that expression on the spaceship?) Sorey sat up straighter on his bed. “Come in.”

A tall, white-haired woman in a red dress opened the door. The clothing was perfect for her, accenting her excellent figure and extraordinary beauty. She shot him a wide smile. “How do I look?”

“Amazing, as always,” Sorey replied momentarily. He didn't even think of questioning that for a second; Lailah never failed to look wonderful no matter what she wore. Sorey liked that. Not _liked_ liked, but… admired. She was truly perfect as she was. She was designed to be that way.

“Well, thank you,” she said with a cheerful look in her eyes. “It has been a while since I used this body.” She threaded a hand through her hair and frowned slightly when her fingers found tangles in it. She huffed with irritation. “I’m already regretting this decision.”

“Hey, it isn’t that bad,” Sorey opposed. “You look nice, you can actually feel things and you are always more helpful when you can investigate things in reality.”

Lailah sent him a warm look. “You are as sweet as always, Sorey. The Rulay will love you.”

Sorey tilted his head. “Who?”

“Oh, that’s what the seraphim call their heir. In their language it means ‘The Enforcer’ - because the leader should always execute …”

“...the will of their people!”

“You know this maxim?” Lailah’s eyes slipped to the book lying onSorey’s bed. “Oh, right. The Celestial Record of course would provide this quote. It’s a pretty famous one, after all.”

“I’ve never thought it originated from the seraphim saying!”

“Well, you never know who exactly wrote the Celestial Record either, right? And the terminology used by the author is outdated, too, so it’s rather hard to know without a doubt as to which planet and system they were exactly referring to. You have the right not to know such things.”

Sorey’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Then, is it possible- Are there the ruins of Mt. Mabinogio? And the city of Camlann? And-”

Lailah giggled. “Well, we have only one way to find out, don’t we? Keep an open mind, Sorey. Who knows what you will find there?”

Sorey nodded enthusiastically. “I will!”

Lailah shook her head with a smile. “Oh, the Rulay will definitely love you.”

Sorey flushed. “He-hey!”

Lailah only laughed in response. “Come on, Captain. Time to get ready and check everything with the rest of the crew.”

Sorey stood up from his bed and followed Lailah to the dining room. It has become a standard place for the crew to meet - it had to be somehow connected to the food there. Humans usually felt better when they knew that, in case of an emergency, they were close to nourishment, and the members of the crew weren’t exceptions. That had to include seraphim, too, because of the time that Dezel was spending in that place.

Unless he was an evil scientist or something, that is. But Sorey doubted that. An evil person could not make brownies _that_ good.

Lailah walked into the room with confidence, flashing everyone a wide smile. “Hello, everyone,” she said, “are you ready?”

Dezel snorted. He liked to do that, Sorey noticed.

Suddenly, the whole ship jerked; Sorey made a desperate attempt to maintain his balance and just barely in time managed to brace himself on the table.

“What was that?!” Rose nearly screamed.

The ship shook again. The lights inside the room flickered dangerously. Every member of the crew looked terrified. Everyone but Lailah.

The woman smiled. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she exclaimed, “welcome to Elysia.”

A light bulb above her head exploded dramatically.

* * *

To Mikleo’s credit, he wasn’t nervous. Not at all.

He had managed to be completely calm while reading the notes Mayvin left behind about Rolance’s view on marriage and what to expect from the humans regarding that subject. Mikleo had managed to put his pride aside when Edna was measuring his human body and snapping comment after comment about it, as well as designing clothes that Mikleo couldn’t even see a purpose of - there were too thin and too revealing to actually protect his body from anything, and that was kind of the point of them, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t nervous at all when Zenrus called for him and gave him one last chance to resign. Mikleo wasn’t nervous when he held his head up, looked the leader of Elysia in the eye and declared his final decision. He wasn’t nervous when Edna helped him into his new clothes and prepared him to be seen by the Prince of Rolance.

But now, when he had nothing to do, he started to feel the panic slowly rising in him. _Oh Maotelus_ , he thought, pulling on the sleeve of his new white robe, _this is really happening_ . _I’m really going to see the person I’ll marry today_.

He and the Prince will get married, of course, if he makes the right impression. Mikleo, that is. Maybe it would be better if he presented himself as a human female? That was probably what Prince Sorey expected to see. What if the prince _won’t_ like Mikleo’s appearance? Mikleo’s manners? Mikleo’s character?

“Hullo,” Mikleo heard the strong voice. He raised his eyes, only to meet the gaze of the fire-like, orange ones.

“He-hello, Zavied,” Mikleo stuttered. He winced at his own words. Zavied only roared with laughter; the seraph’s voice was low and masculine. Completely different from Mikleo’s own.

“Nervous, aren’t you?” Zavied asked, coming closer and nonchalantly putting his arm around Mikleo’s shoulders.

“Not at all,” Mikleo replied, raising his chin with false confidence. Zavied raised his brow.

“Oh? Then why, Mikster, are you pacing back and forth this corridor muttering to yourself like a madman?”

“I’m just practicing what to say,” Mikleo replied and made an effort to shake Zavied’s arm off of him. “Rolancian is not complicated, but I want to be sure I won’t forget which words I should use.”

Zavied sighed. “Boring. Don’t you have something more interesting to think about?”

Mikleo frowned. “Like what?” He finally managed to get away from Zavied and made a few steps to the side to avoid being tackled again. Mikleo thought he saw disappointment cross Zavied’s face, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Like, for example, discovering the wonders of your newly shaped human body.” Zavied sent him a meaningful look. Mikleo didn’t understand. But, then again, he never really did understand Zavied - sure, Mikleo liked humans, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of nearly always being in the human form like Zavied did. Zavied liked to change his appearance often and nearly never stayed in his true seraph form for long. Mikleo just couldn’t see the advantages of that. Though he envied Zavied for Zenrus’ permission for leaving Elysia as he wished that came with it.

(Rumor had it that Zenrus simply wanted to get rid of Zavied this way, but it was hard to prove anything. Zavied didn't complain. He never liked Elysia especially, even less so when he discovered the joy various races of the universe experienced by the process of reproduction. With all its wonders, the seraphim were severely lacking in this area. Mashing ectoplasm together and having to bear the presence of another person in your mind for Maotelus knows how long was not exactly pleasurable.)

Zavied sighed and shook his head when he saw the confused expression on Mikleo’s face. “Kid, soon you will understand,” he said with an all-knowing expression. “I’m sure the prince will be more than happy to conquer with you all the peaks of humanly love.”

Mikleo had no idea what Zavied was talking about, but he nodded with feigned understanding.

“And besides,” Zavied continued, “after the wedding you won’t need to sneak out to go to the Mabinogio ruins in secret.”

Mikleo’s eyes widened. “Why- _How_ -”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone.” Zavied winked at him. “It’s not my business what you do in your free time, but I just happened to see you crawling out of your apartments looking around with so much worry, my first thought was to follow you to see who were you so desperate to see. The ruins were a surprise, but whatever floats your boat.” Zavied shrugged and sent Mikleo a sly smile. Mikleo felt like he was missing something here. He reviewed what Zavied has just said, and after a second, replied:

“Ew.”

“Oh come on.” Zavied folded his arms. “That was just a joke. You know, to take your mind off of things.”

Oh. To take Mikleo’s mind off of things. That reminded Mikleo-

“I’m going to meet him today,” Mikleo said. His voice shook just barely. Well, that was a kind of an improvement.

“And what?” Zavied asked and raised his brow. Mikleo stared at him in shock.

“ _And what_ ?” Mikleo repeated in a high-pitched voice. His hands clenched. “I. Will. Meet. _Him_ . And you ask, _what_?”

“Okay, stop right there.” Zavied cut him off with a move of his hand. “Mikster, you are panicking.”

“I am not panicking!”

“Right, right. Take a few deep breaths, it’ll help you stabilize your emotions. They are all over the place.”

Mikleo frowned and opened his mouth to argue, but he suddenly felt _something_ \- a very bad something - spreading in his stomach, so he couldn’t help but take a big gulp of air. He forced himself into focusing on the breathing process, even if technically he didn’t have to breathe at all. Appearances were not everything, after all, and Mikleo still found the necessity to push the air into his lungs unnerving. Did he even have lungs? He wasn’t sure. But breathing was annoying him, anyway. Even more since he had to do that to make any sounds at all.

He huffed. The feeling of _something_ eased, even if only slightly.

“All better,” Zavied said. He put his hands on his hips in his usual, confident way. “Now listen closely, Mikleo. There is nothing you should be afraid of. You are a smart kid, likable, and a good-looking person.”

“As a seraph or as a human?”

“Both. Trust me.” Zavied smiled at him and suddenly it seemed less teasing and more reassuring than before. “You are, by all standards, close to perfect. And that human kid proposed to you already, so, well, I suspect he is not going to suddenly change his mind.”

“We don’t know this. Especially if I do something-”

“Hold it right here. You are not going to do anything wrong. You will barely do anything at all, to be honest. You won’t be the one to negotiate, you will simply sit there and look pretty for him. And, if you wish, you may greet him with a mind-blowing smile that will make him all hot and bothered.”

Mikleo’s brows snapped together. He tried to remember what this idiom did refer to… Oh Maotelus, he _really_ should have practiced more. Even Zavied knew more than he did!

No, that was not it. If it was really important, Mikleo would know about it. Mayvin would have told him. It was probably yet another stupid joke.

The other seraph smirked at Mikleo’s expression. “Soon.”

Mikleo pursed his lips. “Zavied, I don’t understand what you are talking about. Not at all. Can you please elaborate instead of giving me these annoying looks and enjoying my lack of knowledge? It’s very-”

 _CRASH_!

Mikleo jumped in place, startled. The sound resonated through the ground and Mikleo could swear he physically felt the impact. In contrast, Zavied didn’t even flinch - he looked at Mikleo with an amused expression, like he was suppressing a laugh.

That didn’t calm Mikleo at all. “What-what was that?!”

Zavied raised his brows. “Well, Mikster, it looks like your prince has arrived in big style.”

* * *

“So, we crashed,” Rose summarized.

“We did not,” Lailah opposed. “The controls just got a little bit... wonky. I wasn’t able to put us perfectly on the ground, yes, but we _didn’t_ crash. If we did, you would all be dead.” She looked around, glancing at everyone as if checking if they were still alive. They were, still, mostly unscratched, albeit a little bit shaken. But that was to be expected. They were on a different planet in a different system and they just have gotten out of their non-crash.

Lailah smiled with something that was probably supposed to be reassurance. To be honest, her brightest smile would not help the crew calm down in the slightest. Not with their goal here. Not with the perspective of… whatever it was they will have to get through with the negotiations with the seraphim.

“Okay!” Lailah clasped her hands together. “I must remind you now of a few things, just a small formality. Check your outer and inner suits to prevent leaks. Do not take off your helmets when we'll be on the surface - the radiation from their star is much too intense for your delicate bodies to bear. You will fry, or get skin cancer, or both.”

“Wow. Thanks, Lailah,” Rose deadpanned.

“At your service.” The AI bowed, her white hair gracefully slinging over her shoulder. “The atmosphere is pretty much non-toxic, though it has an oxygen level of about sixteen percent. As your physical tests suggest, Rose _could_ breathe with that air safely unless she exerts herself, so she could hypothetically take off her helmet during the nighttime, but I would not advise that. You all could probably expose yourself to their atmosphere, but please restrain the contact up to five minutes maximum. It's hard to tell how much your skin can take without further testing.” She gave them a little nod. Sorey didn't know how to respond, so he nodded back. “I will do the talking here, as you do not know the language, but I will of course inform you what is going on as the situation progresses. Sorey, everything is up to you, though it would be good to keep in mind that we need some time to repair the engine. If anything happens, we will not be able to escape quickly enough. So don’t start a war.”

Sorey laughed nervously. “Hah, I was not going to!”

“Better keep it that way.” Dezel glared at him. (Well, it was hard to say, given that Dezel has always had his eyes covered, but Sorey could almost feel the seraph’s gaze piercing through him.) “The seraphim are not kind to those who disrespect them.”

“Wow, so scary.” Rose rolled her eyes. “You are aware that this ship is a fortress, right? We could easily hold them off long enough. No threat here.”

Dezel straightened his spine. Sorey almost made a step back at that - the seraph was imposing as he was already, being the tallest one of them and maintaining this creepy aura of mystery around him.

Rose didn’t take her eyes off the seraph. Instead, she raised her chin and stared back, all of her small posture daring Dezel to bark something again. If Sorey hadn’t known her better, he would laugh at that - a small girl versus someone like the seraph. But having been thrown by her across the room multiple times while sparing, he has learned it was better not to provoke her. Unless, of course, you would like to get your ass mercilessly kicked. And get a few broken bones. And a concussion.

Dezel opened his mouth.

Sorey jerked into motion, making a step between Dezel and Rose to separate them, when Alisha stepped closer and simply took Rose’s hand in her own.

Rose blinked and looked down at their linked hands and the tension disappeared as fast as it came to life.

Well. That was one way to end this.

Dezel snorted.

* * *

 

Mikleo squirmed around on his chair. It was way worse now. When he was standing, he could move around and use the excess energy. But now? Now he was bound to the piece of furniture, wearing that overly ethereal clothing - a very weird feeling, Mikleo would say if asked about it - and the only movement he could make was exactly that. Squirming.

Mikleo gripped the armrest of his chair. Or was it a throne? Maotelus, he didn’t know. By Rolance’s standards, was it a throne or just a cheap-looking imitation of it? Mikleo couldn’t tell. And it was driving him insane. _Waiting_ was driving him insane. If he could just do anything, he would probably feel better… But it wasn’t his role. His role was to look as pretty and desirable as it was humanly possible. Or inhumanly possible.

Edna jabbed his side with a long… something. _Umbrella_ , came the word after a second. The reason as to why and how she have obtained the item escaped Mikleo. “Stop moving around.”

“I'm not,” Mikleo denied, trying to convince himself. Edna raised her brow.

“Seriously,” he said one more time. “I’m perfectly calm and collected, and ready to do whatever-”

Edna’s gaze flicked to the side. “Oh, they are here.”

“WHERE?!” Mikleo shrieked and nearly fell off the throne. He snapped his head in the direction of the entrance to the building, but he couldn’t see anything. Behind him, Edna snickered.

“Perfectly calm, you say?” She greeted his death stare and flushed face with sly satisfaction written all over her.

“Yes, laugh at me. Provoke me. You are _so_ mature.” Mikleo rolled his eyes and tried to control the blush on his face, as well as ignore all of the seraphs in the room glancing at him.

“At least I am not the one freaking out here.” She shrugged. “Relax, Meebo. Nothing is going to happen. Zenrus and the Prince will talk, you only have to be present. After that, we can go to Mayvin and do whatever you want, if you wish.”

Mikleo bit his lip. He glanced up to where Zenrus was sitting. The seraph decided to take on the form of an old man - enough to show his status and the respected position as an elder, understandable both in the seraphim and the human cultures. He was sitting at the center-most throne, positioned highest as well, Mikleo to his right and a few steps of the stairs down, still high enough to show Mikleo’s prestige.

Mikleo was supposed to look powerful, after all, being the Rulay of Elysia and the adopted son of Zenrus. Strong and charming.

“For Maotoleus’ sake,” Edna stopped his train of thought, “this is just a human you need to woo in order to gain more influences to protect Elysia. It’s not like you’re going to leave us forever. Get ahold of yourself.”

Mikleo’s hands curled into fists. His nails dug into his palms; he let the sensation linger for a second, rehearsing in his brain a thousands responses to what she said, and then relaxed his muscles. Somewhat of a relief washed over him. He rolled his arms, and sent Edna a half-smile.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m… calm, now.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Edna straightened her spine, shifting on her place by Mikleo’s feet. “They are here.”

Mikleo took in a sharp breath and looked at the people coming into the building.

It was not hard to say who was the leader here; the only male figure in the black and red spacesuit at the front had some kind of an aura of a person who was used to being listened to. Albeit he was probably still not used to it, judging by the way the person was nervously turning his head to the woman a step behind him, and checking up on the rest of his escort - two women, and… a seraph? Mikleo drew his brows together in confusion. Why was a seraph accompanying the Prince of Rolance?

Mikleo mentally shrugged it off. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He had more important things to worry about.

Suddenly the man stopped, and looked right at Mikleo.

If this was any of the full-of-nonsense human legends that Mikleo had read in his not-so-short life, that was the moment their eyes would meet; despite the distance between them he would be able to see the human’s face light up in pure awe and utter love, and Mikleo would feel he had met his one true soulmate. They would run to each other and embrace like miraculously found lovers from their past lives, marry, and live happily ever after on some cosmic equivalent of the suburban area with small nice houses with white fences. As it is, Mikleo simply looked at the nearly transparent helmet the human was wearing and thought, _Wow, that looks uncomfortable._

But just for a second, let’s switch the perspective here. Because even if Mikleo was not so shaken, Sorey was.

Let’s look at things from Sorey’s point of view. He was a seventeen year-old human boy. He had never traveled further than to Hyland and back, including some of the short occasional vacation trips to their moons. From a young age he was being subtly brainwashed by his various nannies who kept telling him the fantastic stories about the princes saving princesses, discovering forgotten ancient civilizations, and annihilating the whole races of their opponents. Sorey loved those stories. Save for the annihilating part, that is. And, as he discovered not so long after, the princesses part was also not quite fitting for him, which was kind of a shock for a person who was told his whole life that a nice girl and a laser gun was all he would ever need. He decided not to think about that too much. As long as he was able to avoid getting married and forced into having lots and lots of children to enlarge the ranks of the Rolance’s already overgrown royal family, he was fine with what he had; and as long as he could explore the universe, he felt happy enough.

So, you see, he wasn’t exactly used to dealing with people he was actually, consciously attracted to.

The problem was, as soon as Sorey had a chance to look at Mikleo’s features, his suppressed libido has woken up with a screech. _This one!_ , it shrieked, pointing its nonexistent fingers at Mikleo’s sharp face with too-big-to-be-completely-human eyes and his slender figure just barely covered by the joke of a white cloth the seraph was wearing. _This one right here looks completely up your alley, don’t you think? With that hair the color of pale aquamarine, skin so fair as to seem almost translucent, sophisticated violet eyes…_

 _Wow_ , Sorey replied to the voice inside his head, _can you stop for a second?_ After a while, he added: _It’s not like you’re lying, though._ And: _Is it normal to argue with the voice inside your head?_

Sorey forced himself to look away from the seraph and instead focused his gaze on the center of the stairs. (He was pretty certain that they were stairs, but he couldn’t understand why they were built here. Why would a civilization of almost no-bodied creatures build anything, really? Yet another question to ask the seraphim, it seemed.)

If Sorey thought that looking at the center would be less distracting than looking at the seraph to the side, he was right. Looking in the face of the seraphim chief (king?) was not distracting at all. It was plainly terrifying. Sorey needed a second to realize that, firstly, he was being stared down, and secondly, he was probably supposed to say something. A greeting, or something that wasn’t pleading for Rulay’s hand. And the rest of his body.

Which would have been awkward, given that Sorey technically did that already.

He cleared his throat. It didn’t have the desired effect - the sound echoed in Sorey’s helmet and made him question whether or not he was able to talk with enough consistency to come across as a decent person. He looked at Lailah with begging in his eyes.

Thank gods, she took the hint and stepped forward.

Lailah took off her helmet, to the visible surprise of the seraphim in the room. Sorey supposed they had a right to be surprised - after all, if Lailah was a human, that would be an extremely stupid thing to do. But he supposed it was a good move for her; the seraphim would feel calmer seeing her expression as she spoke. Probably.

Lailah opened her mouth and the words that she spoke were melodic and delicate, with many vowels and not a lot of hard sounds. Sorey couldn’t help but think of them as pretty, even though he couldn’t understand a thing, sans ‘Rulay’. The words sounded much softer than the harsh Rolancian, less aggressive and much more calm.

The glass of his helmet flickered and words started appearing on it. _I will translate for you as I speak, now - it’s polite to greet them in their language. Say if you want me to add something._

‘ _Greetings, Seraphim! Greetings, Lord Chief and Rulay! It is a great pleasure to meet you. I apologize for the inconvenience - unfortunately, not His Royal Highness, the Prince of Rolance, Sorey, nor his crewmates speak your language, so I will have to suffice as your translator. I also beg for forgiveness if my speech is not clear enough for your standards.’_

Sorey saw the chief bow his head in their direction and reply in the same language. Lailah blinked and anew set of words started appearing as well: _‘Greetings, Prince Sorey. Greetings, his entourage. We are honored to welcome you to Elysia. I hope we will be able to reach a mutual contentment, linking our lineages for the betterment of the future of our nations.’_

Sorey shifted slightly at that. He looked at the seraphim in the room; they seemed... human, but still there was something in their postures and facial expressions that told Sorey’s subconsciousness that they were very much not human at all.

Probably because some of them looked like they forgot to blink. Or breathe. Or both.

Their facial expressions were unreadable as well. It was hard to judge what they were thinking - their faces were blank, not showing any feelings. Not that people of the Rolance’s royal family showed much emotion anyway, their ploys and casual murders kind of being in the way of sincerity, but with them Sorey could at least have a vague impression whether or not they liked what they were hearing. But now, he was clueless. And it was kind of creeping him out, being stared at by the seraphim and just _not knowing_ if they would suddenly decide that they wanted to get rid of them.

Better safe than sorry.

He just hoped that Lailah would not decide to face things head-on and declare to everyone present that, hey, it’s kind of a misunderstanding and Sorey in fact does not want to marry the Rulay.

(Probably.)

But it would just be mean, anyway, if Sorey happily consented even when he may be not considered a prince by his family anymore. Sorey didn’t know as far as the technicalities went. Or was he - he shuddered at the sole thought - _formally married_ to Alisha?

Sorey took in a deep breath to calm himself. No, he shouldn’t think like this - even if the Rulay was… well… uh, it just would not be fair, okay? Better to clear the confusion as painlessly as possible, best without insulting anyone and causing a war.

Lailah cracked a small smile, looking charmingly non-threatening and non-problematic. _‘We assure you, it’s our pleasure to be given a chance to be here. Although I suppose you are ready to carry out the proper ceremonies to celebrate our arrival, for which we are grateful, I am certain that His Royal Highness and the Rulay would like to speak in more private conditions as soon as possible.’_

The Rulay budged slightly at those words. His eyes, previously focused on Lailah, shifted back to Sorey. He was judging Sorey, without a doubt, trying to determine just now what to expect. Sorey was determined not to look back. Especially when Rose laughed through the intercom.

The chief turned his head slightly, his gaze lingering for a moment on the Rulay. ‘ _I admit, that’s probably true. The Rulay was curious as to who would dare to ask for his hand before even meeting him, or even stating publicly any kind of interest in this part of the universe at all.’_

Sorey coughed. “Lailah?”

“Hm?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Tell him…” Sorey licked his lips. “Tell _them_ that their Rulay’s beauty is not one to overlook.”

Rose nearly lost it. “Are you _serious_?! Oh boy, our small prince is growing up! Smooth, Sorey, smooth.” Sorey heard Alisha’s giggle accompanying it as well.

“Thanks for the support, guys,” he said with just a tiny bit of ire in his voice. Lailah nodded with understanding and repeated Sorey’s words in that melodic language, delivering it for the whole room to hear. When she ended, the Rulay looked like he was going to fall off his chair.

“Smooth,” Rose said one more time for emphasis. Sorey felt oddly proud, despite the surprised looks of the seraphim in the room.

At least the chief looked like he got the joke. _‘I am sure the Rulay is flattered by your compliment, your highness. It would surely be a pleasure for him to accompany you for the time being. I also suppose it would be not much of a problem for him to inform you of our planned celebrations for your union, as well as give you some insight into our traditions.’_

When Sorey didn’t do anything that would suggest objection, Lailah nodded. _‘Though we have heard of some of your customs, it would be best to hear of them directly from you. We would be much obliged if the Rulay gave us the honor of teaching us.’_

‘ _Then it’s decided.’_ Even without Lailah’s translation, Sorey felt the end of the discussion in the chief’s voice. He bowed his head, and Sorey replied with the same motion. That was probably the polite thing to do, wasn’t it? He hoped so - it was too easy to break some unsaid rules of court protocol of other cultures. But judging by the fact that no one gasped loudly with exasperation, he deduced that he shouldn’t worry about it too much.

Especially when he should worry about the fact that the Rulay was coming down the stairs, the long double train falling back artistically behind him on the steps, with his eyes fixated on Sorey, and being accompanied by a small and frail-looking girl with an unclear expression. (A friend? Sister? A… lover?)

Sorey bowed quickly under the blank stare of the girl. The Rulay bowed back, the decolletage of his… robe shoving too much skin for Sorey to feel comfortable. Actually, the whole outfit was more than Sorey could take.

Sorey forced himself to focus on the Rulay’s face.

“Hey,” Sorey said. Through the intercom, Rose laughed once again.

“Turn the speakers on, moron, he can’t hear you.”

“Oh. Right. Umm,” he fumbled with the buttons on the helmet, “He-hello. Lailah, can you…?”

“There’s no need for the translator,” the Rulay said in perfect Rolancian. “I speak your language better than you speak mine.” He smiled, his expression gentle and inviting, and Sorey momentarily forgot how to think.

Good thing he had Lailah. “That’s so nice!” she chirped and clasped her hands together. “Did you learn just so you can speak with Prince Sorey?”

Rulay blinked. “Not… exactly. Primarily, I wanted to be able to speak more languages so that I can better understand the partners I will be working with.”

Lailah nodded. “Wise. I only wish that Sorey would be as perspicacious as you are.”

“Hey!” Sorey cut in, feeling the flush of his cheeks. Bless the helmets for not allowing enough purview for anyone to clearly see it. “I never thought I would need to learn them, you know.”

Rulay’s eyes darted between them; he was clearly trying to figure out the relationship between them. And the rest of the crew. Sorey couldn’t blame him for staring - it was probably smarter to try to figure out the relationships around him when he was thrown into this completely new environment.

The girl accompanying the Rulay spoke something in a low voice. The Rulay straightened his back.

“Pardon me for my lack of manners. I forgot to introduce myself, and my…” He stopped, visibly trying to find the right word. (Sorey felt something twist in his stomach.) “My... friend. My name is Mikleo, and as you know, I am the Rulay of Elysia. She is Edna, my companion and a seraph who created the clothes that I am wearing, designing them according to Rolance’s fashion and traditional costumes as we understood them. I hope it did not come off as rude to you.”

Sorey’s gaze slipped lower on Mikleo’s body, and _holy hell this is really thin and what is this cutting even and I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to look especially on a man and-_

“No, it’s… nice.” Sorey swallowed, trying to look everywhere but at Mikleo. “It fits you well.”

A look of a relief appeared on Mikleo’s face, and it was so entertaining to watch Sorey almost didn’t notice Rose’s taunting whistle and Alisha’s giggle.

“I believe you were intended to make us accustomed to your plans which included us?” Lailah suggested. Sorey noted in his mind to thank her when they were finally out of this situation.

“Oh, of course.” Mikleo licked his lips - a nervous, small gesture - and turned his head towards the girl at his side. He said something in his melodic language. She listened to him closely, and without showing any sign of acknowledgment, simply turned around and joined the rest of the seraphim in the back, hurrying… somewhere. Sorey had no idea what was going on now. Maybe some more arrangements?

“I think it would be more convenient to talk in our spaceship, face to face,” Lailah continued. “It’s kind of awkward to talk through helmets, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, don’t you?” Rose stepped forward and put her hands on her hips. “Hello, Rulay Mikleo. I’m Rose, Sorey’s bodyguard. This is Lailah, our pilot, translator and occasionally a mother. This beauty right here,” she gestured to the girl next to her, “is Alisha Diphda, Princess of Hyland. And there is also Dezel… Wait, where is he?” She turned around and scanned their surroundings, but the seraph was nowhere in sight. “Weird.”

“Weird,” agreed Lailah, “but Elysia is his home planet. It’s only natural that he would want to be alone here, right?”

Yeah. It made sense, to Sorey at least - it was not like they had spent enough time with the seraph to really know him, either. He just… happened to be there. No promises were made by him, and they didn’t expect them. Dezel was free to do what he wanted to. It wasn’t like he was spying on them or something.

“Let’s get going, then,” Sorey commanded. After a second, he extended his hand to Mikleo, palm-up, and shot the seraph a shy smile.

Mikleo looked at Sorey’s hand like it was a poisonous alien creature that might or might not go on a full-blown killing spree.

Sorey felt exceptionally stupid. He flushed and turned around, trying to hide his embarrassment. “S-so, we will guide you to where we landed! You can tell us in the meantime some more about-”

Mikleo took his hand.

Sorey blinked, looked down at their linked hands, and suddenly he understood why Rose was so taken aback when Alisha grabbed hers like that.

It was, most definitely, very distracting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a big THANK YOU to all people who left comments and kudos. Seriously, I am greateful for your kind words. This fic was kind of written as an experiment and exercise - so, it's the first time I actually sat down and outlined the plot so that it made sense more or less and also tried to imitate someone else's style. I'm happy to know that I am succeeding at this :'D
> 
> Also, for those who want to know: full fic is about 37k words, with one more chapter to go. I will try to correct and post it next week, but I will be at a winter break in London then, so I can't promise it.
> 
> Anyway, I love y'all, hope you like this chapter as well ❤

Mikleo kept smiling, talking, and let himself be led to the unfamiliar spaceship, desperately trying to hide that he had no idea what he was doing.

Speaking with Mayvin and studying books about Rolance was one thing. Meeting the actual people was a completely other matter; there were so many things that could end wrong, so many mistakes Mikleo could make… He wasn’t even sure if he hadn’t done them already. He knew that offering a hand was a sign of trust, of course - in Rolance people often shook their hands when they greeted each other - but _holding_ one? Was it a sign of even deeper connection? Was it appropriate if he and Sorey met merely minutes ago? Was the fact that they were going to marry each other influencing such behavior? How long was it correct to do that?

Mikleo pressed his lips together and tried to block the thoughts from overflowing him.

To no avail. They came back with twice as much power as they did before - Mikleo sure was talented at overthinking. But could he be blamed for that? He was scared and alone among humans. Even if he didn’t find them really that much of a threat and even if he knew that if he so much as screamed, surely some of the royal guards would rush to help him and would definitely be able to kill all the humans, and it wasn’t like they _couldn’t_ win the war with Rolance if it happened-

Okay, that was a bad train of thought. The whole point was to avoid the war. And, maybe, win some of Rolance’s influences.

“Mikleo?” he heard Sorey’s voice. Mikleo’s head shot up and he saw a hint of confusion on Sorey’s face. “You are squeezing too tight.”

“I’m so sorry!” Mikleo let go of Sorey’s hand and stepped away. Oh Maotelus, that was definitely rude. And inappropriate. He was making a fool of himself, a fool in front of all these people and-

“No problem.” Sorey shook his head, his face full of reassurance. “And it looks like we are... here.”

Mikleo blinked and remembered where they were supposed to go. The Rolance people’s spaceship. Right.

Mikleo knew little about interstellar vehicles, but he supposed that the ship was not bad. Threatening - looking and definitely not inviting, it was way too big and in the deepest shade of black Mikleo has ever seen, making it look like it was devouring light all around it.

Nice first impression, that's for sure.

In other words - objectively speaking, it was a perfect ship for invading alien civilizations, but less great as a vehicle for friendly diplomacy talks. If Mikleo had not known better, he would have thought that Rolance’s expedition was badly planned, or not planned at all. But hey, you couldn’t _accidentally_ propose to an heir from a different planet, right?

With that in mind Mikleo followed the humans inside. He slowly stepped on the platform, trying not to trip in his new attire. Easier said than done - it was complicated enough to move on his limbs - er, that is, _legs._ (Mikleo needed some time to master the art of not falling on his face.)

As soon as the humans came inside the sealed room with controlled atmosphere, they took off their helmets. Mikleo tried not to stare at them, but it was tempting; the colors of their hair were so diverse, as were their eyes. ( _Genius._ )

Glancing from the corner of his own eye, Mikleo caught a glimpse of the prince’s head. Dark hair, slightly disheveled, but not unkempt; the face that most humans would describe as handsome. Mikleo, however, had trouble deciding that. It was kind of hard when he has never seen any human except Mayvin. But he sincerely hoped that Prince Sorey was handsome, so we can give him a golden star for trying.

The thing that piqued Mikleo’s interest was not the Prince’s face, however. Now, without the barrier of glass hiding them from Mikleo’s sight, Mikleo could clearly see the decorations hanging from the Prince’s ears - Mikleo remembered vaguely seeing the word for it somewhere. But that didn’t matter as much. The thing was… The thing was, this color pattern, these materials used - Mikleo was almost sure it was in reference to the Tales of the Galactic Shepherd attire. Should he ask? Should he- no, that wouldn’t be appropriate. The Prince of Rolance probably had better things to do than discuss a children’s book.

The Prince looked at him. “Uh, Mikleo?”

“Yes?” Mikleo asked with a smile.

“We should- Uh, I mean-”

“Mikleo Rulay, it would be a pleasure if you could follow us to a meeting room.” Lailah stepped between them, obscuring Sorey’s reddened face from Mikleo’s sight.

Mikleo blinked. “Y-yes, of course,” he replied, mentally checking whether he did something wrong to anger the Prince. That's why he reacted this way, right? Flushed face? Trouble speaking? Nervous ticks?

“Oh, wonderful!” Lailah hooted. “Please, follow me. We can wait in the room while the prince takes off the outer suit.”

Mikleo nodded. There was not much else he could do.

* * *

It was hard to focus on acting refined and appropriate when half of Sorey’s mind wanted to scoop Mikleo in his arms, run across the ship, and throw him on a bed.

And cuddle. Sorey wasn’t yet confident enough to do much else. But still, it was most definitely distracting, and Rose’s snickering through the intercom didn’t help in the slightest.

Well, at least now she won't have a chance to make fun of him so openly. She and Alisha, that is. The princess was learning way too quickly for Sorey’s liking.

The point was: the situation he was in was unusual, if not completely alien, to anything Sorey has supposed he would have to confront, so he would really appreciate some help. Thank the universe for Lailah – at least she looked like she knew what she was doing, taking on the most responsible tasks here herself. Sorey will have to pay her back somehow, after all this ends.

_After this ends…_ , Sorey thought while taking off the outer suit and hanging it in its respective place on the wall. These words sounded important. They sounded final. Ceremonial. They sounded as if there was some ‘end’ to this whole situation after which everything could go back to relative normality, or as much as they could live normally, being outcasts and all. And that shouldn’t be a surprise to Sorey; the plan was simple – get the Rulay, talk to him/her/them, explain the mistake, apologize profoundly, and evacuate before they realize they could get revenge. After that, they would go back to drifting in space, without a goal or any need to have it. They could do anything. They could do nothing at all, and the world would still be the same, and they would still be as they were before.

Some part of Sorey wanted to rebel against that. Another part of him nodded with understanding and collaborated with a lizard part of Sorey’s brain, which in return decided it liked the Rulay very much. Very, very much. Enough to make Sorey’s blood flood with hormones, stacked just for an occasion like this one, and turn Sorey’s thought process into a Mikleo-filled mess.

So you see, it shouldn’t be all that surprising for anyone that Sorey fell in love with the person least able to reciprocate those feelings, let alone understand them, process them and fuel them into direct actions. Sorey was the same way.

But alas, all things considered, Sorey should probably feel screwed.

He didn’t. He had a plan, you see. The plan came together right then and there, with Alisha’s and Rose’s chattering in the background and the scent of antiseptic floating in the air as the chamber was being disinfected, the plan that was so simple and yet so genius Sorey congratulated himself at making it up.

There were only two things he could do in this situation.

He could act like an adult and confess everything to the Rulay, apologize and go his way... or he could try to make it work out, somehow, which sounded far more exciting and possibly dangerous, but nonetheless had a better chance of getting closer to the Rulay.

So, you know. It was almost like there had been no choice at all.

* * *

“Zenrus.”

“Dezel. What a surprise to see you here.” The eyes of the old seraph – human eyes – squinted in suspicion.

Dezel tilted his head. “You’ve gotten used to this body.”

“Indeed, I had. It was expected of me during the talks.”

“And yet here you are, alone with the other seraphim, still in this form.”

Zenrus shifted in place. “As are you.”

Dezel snorted, as he liked to do. “It was you who suggested I mimic a human and become your spy in the Rolance Empire. I’m merely trying to follow your orders. Meanwhile, you have no need to do so.”

“It is needed to show proper respect.”

“The Prince is lying.”

“Of course he is.”

At these words, Dezel straightened his back and something like surprise crossed his face. “You know?”

“Of course I do. I am a ruler of Elysia. I need to have reliable sources of information independent from what the public gets.” A smile appeared on Zenrus’s old face. One could describe it as inviting, even, but then again, one could never know the things that Zenrus did to protect Elysia. Dezel knew, so he didn’t relax at all looking at Zenrus’s expression.

Especially when he have just heard something he hadn’t known before. Of course, it should be fairly obvious that Zenrus couldn’t simply be relying on Dezel alone, especially considering Dezel’s unusually devasteful relationship with Rolance (one can hold a grudge against the government if they murder all of your family and friends just because it is, as quoted, “fun”,) yet still Dezel couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that there was some bigger picture there he was missing.

“What do you intend to do with this information, then?” Dezel asked with almost no curiosity in his voice. “It is pointless for the Rulay to marry the prince who can not give him any more power. It is dangerous too as much as to allow him and his crew to be here at all – it could be enough for Rolance and Hyland to declare war against us.”

“Do you really think so?” Zenrus’ voice was thoughtful, as if he himself was wondering what to do in this situation. Which Dezel knew wasn’t true – Zenrus wasn’t called one of the greatest rulers of Elysia for nothing, and definitely must have had some kind of plan ready to execute.

And Dezel’s role would be to follow orders, as always, whatever they might be. “What do you need me to do?”

“You? Oh, nothing. You can stand back and relax.” The corners of Zenrus’s mouth were still quirked. “I predict that we won’t be required to do anything at all, really.”

Dezel didn’t understand. But in the end, he didn’t need to.

A shame that the humans will never be able to taste his excellent brownies again.

* * *

Mikleo blinked. And blinked again. The act was merely a biological thing, usually done without thinking about it, but Mikleo was painfully aware of the fact that he was, indeed, blinking with confusion, just so that he wouldn’t need to look at the Prince for a few milliseconds.

“What?” he asked, undignified.

The Prince laughed. He seemed to do that a lot when he was nervous, which seemed to be nearly all the time. “Heh, you didn’t catch it again?”

“I apologize, but you are using terminology I cannot seem to get a grasp of.”

“That’s okay. I will try to be clearer this time.”

“Take four,” the woman with red hair – Rose – mumbled in the back.

The Prince took a deep breath. “I am a Prince of Rolance, Sorey.”

“That much I understand,” Mikleo said. “She,” he gestured towards the blonde human huddled near Rose the bodyguard, “is Princess Alisha from Hyland.”

“Yes.” Sorey nodded.

“You two are married-”

“ _No_ ,” both prince and the princess said at the same time.

Mikleo blinked.

Rose groaned.

“Look, Mikleo,” Lailah said with the patience of a saint or of a robot, “they had both escaped _before_ the actual wedding ceremony, so they are technically not married. Alas, publicly speaking, they are married to each other and thus neither of them can marry you, for which we apologize profusely.”

“No, it’s not that!” Sorey waved his hands around, as if trying to direct Mikleo’s attention back to him. “I can’t, I mean, neither of us can marry you given the due respect you deserve. Also the proposal was an accident. And my fault. And, really, we just need some time to repair the engine of our ship. And I’m sorry.”

Mikleo tried to wrap his head around all of this, and to his surprise, this time it didn’t seem as unbelievable as it did the first time the Prince had tried to explain the situation, tripping over himself to somehow get his point across without offending Mikleo. The Prince succeeded, in that Mikleo didn’t feel especially offended.

More disappointed in himself, really. He honestly did believe that someone would just come and marry him into a new life, didn’t he? And he had made such a big deal about this, too. Oh, well. It seemed like his self-sacrificial nature would have to wait for a different occasion to shine.

“I think I understand,” Mikleo said. “I don’t think the Chief will deem it as an offense to himself. You are free to stay as long as you need to.”

“Thank you.” Lailah smiled. “We really do appreciate that. Right, Sorey?”

“Uh,” said Sorey. He was much less prince-like than Mikleo has expected.

And for some reason, out of the blue, Mikleo wanted to cry.

Which was unusual, since Mikleo has never cried in his life, not having internal organs to do so, but now his human body demanded to let some water out of his blinking eyes, so he let it pour out and down his cheeks.

“Oh shit, you made him cry,” Rose breathed out. “Way to go, Sorey.”

“That’s not-” Sorey tried to say, but Rose cut him off with a sharp move of her hand.

“No talking. Deal with this. Alisha, let’s go.”

“Oh, I have just remembered I have to do an inspection of a part of the ship and I absolutely need to do this right now!” Lailah chirped and raised from her seat.

Mikleo opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but they were gone before he could let a sound out of his strangled throat.

He and the Prince were alone in the conference-room-which-looked-way-too-much-like-a- kitchen.

The Prince coughed.

Mikleo sniffled. The water seemed to also run through his nose, somehow.

“Here,” Prince Sorey said, handing Mikleo a soft piece of… paper, probably.

Mikleo looked at the human with confusion.

“It’s a tissue,” the human explained, “for blowing your nose and wiping your face. Because you are crying and it’s wet and it’s… Well, it’s customary.”

“It’s customary,” Mikleo repeated. If it was customary, it would be really rude to refuse… blowing his nose.

Mikleo slapped the tissue on his face. It seemed to absorb the water rather nicely.

Prince Sorey made a strangled noise like he was dying.

Mikleo scraped the now wet piece of paper off his face. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Yeah.”

Mikleo paled.

“I mean, no!” Sorey said, waving his hands around. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything or make you think that it’s weird, you are welcome here, I don’t care how you behave or what you do, I know it must be all new to you, I don’t think it’s inappropriate, you are fine, really fine, and I-” He ran out of breath. Sorey took in new air and ended, “No, it wasn’t _wrong_ , it was funny. That’s all.”

“Funny,” Mikleo repeated.

“Funny,” Sorey agreed.

Mikleo looked at Sorey and caught the Prince looking back.

And suddenly, in unison, they smiled at each other.

* * *

Rose attacked once again, slashing down with her daggers. Alisha parried the attack with ease. Suspiciously too much ease.

“What's going on?” Alisha asked, slicing in Rose’s direction with her spear. Rose huffed and instead of trying to fend off, she made a quick sidestep. The spear brushed the floor of the training room with a screech.

“Nothing,” Rose said.

Alisha raised her brow. “Sorry, but I'm under the impression that you are especially unfocused right now.”

Rose lurched forward, as if to prove Alisha wrong. Which would have worked just fine if Alisha has never seen Rose fight, and also if she was blind, crippled or sleep - deprived. As it was, Alisha needed a fraction of a second to counter the attack, knock the weapon out of Rose’s hand, and send Rose to the floor in one graceful movement.

Alisha smiled sweetly and pressed the blade of her spear to Rose’s neck. “See? It was far too easy.”

Rose grumbled something under her breath and made an attempt to stand up.

Alisha’s innocent smile widened as she reminded Rose with a small shove that yes, indeed there was still a blade to her neck, and Alisha had no plans to remove it in the near future.

That usually wouldn’t be a problem - Rose was more than capable of defending herself, no matter the situation, and she and Alisha were fairly matched, but now, Rose was definitely far from her best performance and it was Alisha’s responsibility to fix this.

Well, not really, but Alisha was worried anyway.

Rose glanced up and then shook her head with a sigh. “Okay, you are right.”

“Here you go.” Alisha extended her free hand and helped Rose get up. “Now please tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” Rose murmured.

Alisha sent her a glare.

“I mean…” Rose picked up the dagger from the floor. “It’s weird, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“All of this.” Rose made a vague motion with her hands. “It works out? All of this? It’s hard to believe.”

Alisha’s brows drew together. “Rose, you have to be more specific. I don’t think I get what you are talking about.”

“I’m saying, it’s too easy. No one tried to stop us, and no one seems to be looking for us.” Rose threw up her dagger and caught it with the other hand. “Is it just me who is surprised at that? We pissed off both Rolance and Hyland. Shouldn’t they be trying to find out where we are?”

Alisha bit her lip, to stop it from shaking. She could feel the anxiety rising from somewhere within her. “I want to believe they have just decided to let us go.”

“It’s unlike both of them and you know it.” Rose turned around and with one swift movement threw the dagger at the other side of the room. It hit right the center of a bullseye. “I can’t wrap my head around this. It seems too improbable to be true.”

Alisha watched her with eyes wide open.

It wasn’t like Alisha didn't know that standing up against the two most aggressive and infamous planets with exactly zero self control whatsoever was not necessarily a good strategic move. It was not even a bad move. It was outright stupid, with both the hint of a rare kind of bravery and an even rarer kind of stupidity.

“Well, it’s just a ‘what if’ kind of conversation.” Rose shrugged. “Sorry for ruining the mood, by the way.”

“No problem.” Alisha forced herself to smile.

“I can do, like, a backflip if that would help.”

Alisha cocked her head. “Could you do that while throwing knives?”

Rose straightened her spine. “Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, you are _so_ on.”

Alisha laughed and a wave of relief washed over her. It was really hard to worry with someone like Rose near her and for that, Alisha loved her just a little bit more than previously.

Well. After all, would anything really go wrong?

* * *

The answer is: very much so. A lot of things could go wrong at any given second. Even excluding the less probable things, like the nearby supernova randomly exploding, the risk was still pretty high.

Especially if there was a person hunting you down.

But Sorey didn’t know that yet.

The only one who knew was Symonne. And that was because she was the one who was Emperor Heldalf’s right hand and probably the best secret agent in the whole Glenwood Galaxy, responsible for more deaths than was humanly possible. Because, you know, she wasn’t exactly human. And she wasn’t exactly a person with a strong moral compass, too.

Hunting down an escapist prince should not be much of a challenge.

But hush for now. After all, Sorey didn’t need to worry about it yet.

Though maybe he should.

* * *

Do you know those magical feelings when you meet one person, and when you start talking, you suddenly feel as if you have known them for a long time?

Sorey didn’t feel that at all. But that made it all the more interesting to get to know Mikleo.

Mikleo, who has just nodded gracefully. (How the seraph managed to make his every move seem graceful was a mystery for Sorey, but it's not like he was complaining.)

“I see,” Mikleo said. “Delivering these parts will not be a problem, fortunately.”

“Thank you,” Sorey said with a smile, once again. “You have no idea how much it helps us.”

Mikleo tilted his head. “I have some ideas. Damaged core is a danger for everyone.”

“Well, that just means we need to stay just for a while longer.”

“Indeed.” Mikleo’s big, violet eyes peered right into Sorey. They were unusually big and unusually violet, and made Sorey think of a dark, deep ponds of water - the kind in which there were terrifying, enormous monsters just waiting for a careless traveller, to finally devour the poor guy.

And they reminded him of these kind of ponds in which there were swimming colorful, small fish. That probably fit the metaphor better, but Sorey couldn’t quite shake off the feeling of something _alien_ being in Mikleo anyway.

Which was kind of accurate, since Mikleo _was_ an alien. Before, when Sorey has only managed to shyly glance a few times, he didn’t really notice that; still, Mikleo was mostly beautiful and only a bit terrifying, but up close it was easy to pinpoint that Mikleo was definitely not a human.

That should probably scare Sorey off.

It didn’t. If anything, that made Sorey like Mikleo more.

Sorey coughed discreetly. Mikleo’s brows twitched.

“So,” Sorey started. “It’s… nice weather outside.”

Mikleo sent him a blank stare. “The electromagnetic radiation levels are non-threatening today,” he replied slowly, as if he wasn’t sure that was an appropriate answer.

And damn Sorey if he knew, either. He would have facepalmed himself if not for the fact that Mikleo would probably feel uneasy. Sorey didn’t want to scare Mikleo even more.

Sorey coughed again and strategically decided to avoid Mikleo’s gaze. “I, uh… I’ve heard… Ah, nothing, I just-”

“Does my presence irritate you?” Mikleo asked before Sorey could get ahold of himself.

Sorey froze with one of his hands raised in a weird half-gesture in the air. “What?”

From the corner of his eye Sorey could see Mikleo shift in his place on a kitchen chair. “Your reaction patterns match the ones I learned to associate with irritation and anger. I do not have a desire to displeasure you, so if my assistance is not needed, I should-” Mikleo stood up from his chair.

Sorey jumped to his feet. “Oh, no! You are not angering me! It’s a pleasure to have you here, seriously-”

Mikleo _hissed_.

Sorey would have fallen off the chair if he wasn’t already standing.

Mikleo look equally surprised as Sorey. He covered his mouth with his hand. “I’m sorry! I’m still not used to- This body reacts on its own according to what is happening, I do not understand why it happens-”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Sorey quickly sidestepped around the table and grabbed Mikleo’s arm in a gesture that was supposed to be reassuring and full of support, but judging from Mikleo’s expression, it didn’t quite come across as such. Mikleo looked something between terrified and curious, with just a little bit of confusion.

“Oh,” Mikleo said. His eyes wandered towards the place where Sorey grabbed him.

Sorey momentarily released the grip. “It’s- Touching is a sign of support,” he explained, praying it was what Mikleo wanted to hear. “I know the emotions might be confusing for you. Even humans need some time to learn to deal with them. So I’m… Yeah. I know how you feel.”

“Oh,” Mikleo repeated. He shifted in place; his hand caressed the material of his gown, as if trying to straighten it. His eyes fixated on the floor, and there was a hint of color on his cheeks.

Sorey swallowed. “I think… I think you wanted to discuss what kind of celebration we will attend?”

“You are right.” The change of a subject seemed to give Mikleo a rush of confidence. His back straightened - the material slipped a bit, revealing  part of his milky white neckline-

“W-which kind of celebrations?” Sorey forced himself to look at Mikleo’s face.

Mikleo’s expression was unreadable. “For the seraphim, it is a tradition to organize a feast before a marriage. The current time of the year is deemed as the most fitting for celebrations, since The Day is approaching-” _The seraphim really do hate naming things, don’t they?,_ Sorey thought, “-and it is only on this one day that one is allowed to choose a mate. This particular day is said to be beneficial for making the right decision - the seraphim can have only one partner in a lifetime, so it needs to be a wise choice.”

Sorey blinked. That was way too many new words and information to remember. He blurted out, “Humans, too.”

Mikleo blinked. “Excuse me?”

“We choose one partner for life. Usually, I mean.” Sorey laughed nervously. “Uh, it’s not- it’s a choice. Humans do not physically need to bond with only one person, as the seraphim do.”

A spark of something new appeared in Mikleo’s eyes. “You do know the seraphim’s customs?”

“Only a little. There was a seraph that was travelling with us, and Lailah interviewed him a bit, so I know the basics.” Sorey sent Mikleo a weak smile. “I know… I know that a decision to marry is not an easy one for you all. I am honoured that you have accepted my proposal, even if it wasn’t what I intended it to be.” Sorey bowed his head. “I bet you needed a lot of bravery to agree to this marriage, and I’m sorry if I disrespected you.”

Mikleo looked lost. “You _proposed_. That was- that was nothing but flattering.”

“I’m glad you think so.” The words came out of Sorey’s mouth sounding more emotional than he intended to, but it was hard to hide his relief; it would be much too easy to ruin this and make Mikleo hate him. Much too easy, and much too painful.

“But wait,” Sorey said, a thought suddenly appearing in his mind, “since we are not getting married… Is it appropriate for me to accompany you in these celebrations?”

Mikleo twitched nervously and a new emotion appeared on his face. Fear.

Well, that was new.

“What’s going on?” Sorey asked.

Mikleo bit his lip. “I told you before that the Chief would not deem this as an offense.”

“Yes…?”

“I’m… not so sure of that.”

Sorey stared sheepishly at Mikleo. “You mean… You _don’t know_ whether he will declare war against us because of it?”

“Declaring war would be a bit extreme. But a death sentence, at the other hand…”

If Sorey’s eyes weren’t already as wide as was humanly possible, they would widen even more. “I don’t want to die,” he informed Mikleo. “And I don’t want anyone else to die, either.”

“I don’t want it either!” Mikleo’s voice hitched. “So please, at least for the time being, you need to agree to act as my future mate. Until the repair of your ship is completed, it’s the only way for you to remain safe here.”

Sorey must have misheard something. It was simply not possible that what his brain registered as Mikleo’s words was really right, really spoken out loud by the gorgeous not-human being. If it was, by any chance, true, that would be… That would be…

Sorey licked his lips. He looked into Mikleo’s eyes - honest, bright, filled with genuine concern - and blurted out, “But wouldn’t it be bad for you, too? I mean, you don’t actually want to marry me, right?”

“Of course not,” Mikleo replied, and something jumped in Sorey’s stomach unpleasantly. “We need to orchestrate this so that you will leave before The Day. It’s about one Elysia day from now - the word is _tomorrow_ , right? The day lasts for about thirty hours at this time of year.”

“So, only about thirty hours in total.”

“Can you complete the repairs in this period of time?” Mikleo asked and, oh, Sorey would so  much rather say _no, it’s impossible_ , just to stay with Mikleo a bit longer, but looking at Mikleo’s face, so full of worry and exhaustion, it was hard to reply anything but,

“Y-yes, sure.”

Sorey really hated himself sometimes.

“That’s good.” Mikleo nodded. Partially as an agreement, and partially probably because a strand of hair fell on his face and he still didn’t realize he could get it off using his hands. “Your crew should also know about this, to make a better impression.”

“Of course,” Sorey deadpanned.

“Do not worry.” Mikleo took a step forward. Before Sorey could react, Mikleo raised his hand and put it at the side of Sorey’s head, Mikleo’s thumb caressing Sorey’s cheek.

The corners of Mikleo’s mouth rose and Sorey needed a second to realize that the seraph was indeed smiling. At him.

“I’m going to support you,” Mikleo said, the seriousness in his voice contrasting with the way he stroked Sorey’s face with his delicate, small hands.

And that was the moment Sorey knew he was well and truly damned.

* * *

As the Celestial Record claims, all the cultures in Glenwood Galaxy have some kind of fertility celebration fest established at some point of their existence. The nature of these events varies from “mostly harmless” to “possibly resulting in total annihilation of a species in a time needed to say ‘oh well, I'm not sure that's how you should use this blasty-stabby thing, honey.’ ”

Fortunately for the humans of Elysia, the seraphim tended to fall into the first category. Usually. If no one angered them.

Sorey wasn’t worried about that, not really. He would be able to sleep easily if he wanted to.

The thing was, he didn’t. He wasn't even planning on sleeping at all, to be honest. There were too many things he could be doing instead. Many of them were highly dangerous or illegal.

Sneaking into the Camlann ruins in secret in the middle of the night was probably both.

Now, one could ask: “Why would you do something so risky if you are supposed to be acting carefully and if your mistake could result in killing all of your friends off?” And that would be a good question Sorey would have a problem answering.

Good thing there was no one around to ask him, then.

But seriously… What was Sorey supposed to do, after so many stressful situations he had to go through? Visiting a nice ruin was the least he could do for himself. He deserved it. Besides, he had wanted to see Camlann for a while now - that is, from the moment he had finished reading the Celestial Record for the first time, which was _years_ ago. Sorey had almost accepted that he would never get to see the ruins.

So it should be completely understandable that he decided to go without telling anyone, even Lailah. It was quite easy to disappear into the night unnoticed; it seemed that Lailah still wasn’t quite used to having to manage both her mechanical body and the ship at the same time, so a quick trick here and there was enough for Sorey to exit the ship without triggering any traps or layers of security. Rose and Alisha were busy repairing the ship, as they called it, but what they were doing probably included way too much hitting things and way too little repairing. And way too much stealing glances at each other as they were hitting things.

Now, if only Sorey could _find_ those ruins-

Sorey sighed and shook his head. He regretted it instantly; he tripped on something that was probably supposed to be some kind of a plant and only his life-long training prevented him from smashing his helmet on the ground.

Which wouldn’t be life-threatening, as the sun was already down, but would definitely be ego-threatening, as much as orientation-threatening; Sorey had entered the most probable coordinates of the ruins and the Guide Programme was giving him instructions. Instructions that Sorey has not so much ignored as taken with a little dose of scepticism.

When he regained his balance, words appeared on the screen in his helmet. _Make a U-turn._

“No,” Sorey replied, confidently stepping forward and confidently tripping again.

_Calculating an alternative route. Please stand by._

Sorey really should have asked Lailah to write a better programme for this. At this rate, he was going to be lost soon. If he wasn’t already, that is, but for now, Sorey was pretty sure he could find his way back to the ship, even in this darkness. Elysia’s moon was not reflecting as much light of the superpower sun as he had expected; Sorey was not afraid of the darkness, being used to being in space and in the Rolance-style buildings and ships, but it was definitely hard to move like this, trying to avoid both Elysians and other beings that could probably be a problem. Lailah didn’t see a point of informing them of Elysia’s fauna and flora, but then again, she probably wouldn’t see a reason for Sorey to go alone in some kind of… Forest? A forest without  trees, that is. “Forest” was the closest word that Sorey could come up with. The aura here was similar to the one in Rolance’s forests, at least, with not much light, high plants and weird noises in the distance.

And in not so much distance. Sorey froze and turned around, squinting at the darkness. He could have sworn he had heard something, but the heat sensors didn’t show anything out of the ordinary…

_Alternative route calculated. Please make a U-turn._

“No!” Sorey growled. “I’m not going to do this, I have seen the map, there is a much simpler way right-”

The darkness in front of his eyes jumped.

Before Sorey could scream, he was shoved and pinned to the ground; the breath was smashed out of his lungs as he tried to struggle and kick off the attacker, and red warnings appeared on the screen in front of his eyes: _lack of oxygen, suit damaged, requiring backup_ , and he couldn’t do anything, the darkness was everywhere, clouding his vision and he couldn’t even _see_ the attacker, he could only feel the weight of _something_ holding him in place, unable to reach for a laser knife, unable to move an inch-

There was only one thing he could do: he forced himself to let go of the little air he had and grunted through his clenched teeth: “Call Lai-”

“ _Sorey_?”

The darkness let go of him. Sorey took in a shaky breath and rolled away; he jumped on his feet as fast as he could. He looked around, reaching for a knife strapped to his waist, and got ready for combat; the darkness swirled around, shifted, and-

Sorey gaped. “Mik-Mikleo?”

_Processing the request… Calling-_

Sorey snapped out of it and waved his hand to cancel the call.

In front of him, something suspiciously resembling Mikleo rocked on its heels and looked embarrassed.

“What- what are you doing here?” asked Sorey, eyeing the figure before him carefully. It indeed looked like Mikleo; with light hair and a face that Sorey could pinpoint in the dark, and the rest of his body hidden in the shadows.

Sorey was too shaken to mourn that he couldn’t see if Mikleo was still dressed in that over-the-top gown.

“I could ask you the same,” probably-Mikleo replied. “What are you doing in the Aroundight Forest? At night?”

“So that’s what it’s called?” Sorey decided it was safe to put away the knife. Probably-Mikleo looked much too embarrassed and shocked to be a real threat. “And besides, _you_ attacked me!”

“I thought you were a hyouma!” Mikleo’s voice shook at that last word, and whatever ‘hyouma’ meant, Sorey was pretty sure he didn’t want to meet any of them. “I thought _you_ were going to attack me!”

“I wasn’t!”

“I didn’t know that!”

“Neither did I!”

“It’s dangerous to be here alone!” Mikleo screamed. “What if something had happened to you?”

“I was just going to search for the ruins of Camlann!” Sorey yelled back. “And Artorius’s Throne! And you can’t stop me!”

Mikleo opened his mouth like he was going to scream again, and Sorey mentally prepared himself to dash into the forest away from him. But Mikleo only stayed where he was, with his mouth open, staring at Sorey with his big, shiny eyes, deadly motionless.

“You were going to do what?” Mikleo asked in a weak voice.

Sorey huffed. “See the ruins. The Celestial Record explained the location enough for me to start speculating.”

“You read the Celestial Record?”

Something in the way that Mikleo said it threw Sorey off-balance. “Uh, well, yes.”

“Oh.” Mikleo blinked owlishly. “And did you find it… interesting?”

“Wait, you read it too?!”

Mikleo nodded. Somehow, he looked nearly as confused as Sorey felt. “It was… it was an interesting lecture for me. Very… very inspirational.”

“Huh, I bet you saw Artorius’s Throne so many times,” Sorey murmured with envy.

“Uh,” Mikleo replied. “I… Yes. Yes, I did. I also hoped to see it tonight.”

Sorey needed a few seconds spent in uncomfortable silence to really process what Mikleo has said. (Well, not complete silence; something was definitely screeching somewhere in the forest like it was enraged and planning to devour everything in its path, but that wasn’t the focus of Sorey’s attention.) And he had come to the following conclusion:

Mikleo sneaked into the ruins at night, like Sorey did. And now wanted to go to the ruins, like Sorey did. Which meant that their goals were cooperating with each other. And Sorey could ask for Mikleo’s assistance, and thus they could spend some more time together, right then and right there, while also exploring the ancient ruins. Together. Without anyone knowing and/or supervising them.

Sorey could both be _with_ Mikleo and _in_ the ruins, simultaneously, spontaneously, and without any other reason for it other than they both _wanted to_.

It was almost too great to be true.

Sorey licked his lips. “Mikleo… Can you show me the way?”

* * *

Mikleo was fairly surprised. Or unfairly, depending on how you look at this. It wasn’t fair to see this situation as an inconvenience if he basically brought this on himself. The gods had finally decided on punishing him for being so painfully ineffective with his life.

If this was indeed his punishment, then he would deal with it with grace and without a word of complaint. Besides, that would be not the worst that could happen to him. Sightseeing with the Rolance Prince? Yes, please. In contrast to eternal torture, it seemed surprisingly pleasant.

Maybe it wasn’t punishment after all, Mikleo thought as he walked through the Aroundight Forest. Maybe it was a lesson. A message, that Mikleo couldn’t decipher just yet.

“Hey, this will sound weird, but do you have a body?” Sorey asked.

Mikleo would have fainted if he had enough internal organs to do so. How could he forget?! Haphazardly, he shaped the rest of his body to turn into a complete human form, not just a head with a little bit of a throat - just enough to be able to speak - attached to a big blob of ectoplasm floating around. How could he let himself be seen like that by the Prince?! That was unsightly.

“Yes,” he replied in a voice that almost didn’t shake. “Why?”

“I thought I saw… Uh, forget it. My eyes are playing tricks on me.”

Mikleo almost sighed with relief. The danger was postponed.

Even if Mikleo wasn’t trying to impress the Prince anymore, it still wouldn't be any good to disrespect him. And appearing in his true form would definitely be seen as disrespectful. A shining blob wouldn’t impress anyone, that one Mikleo was sure.

And besides, it could get really awkward really fast.

But there again - Mikleo just had to get through this, hopefully unscarred, and then forget that something like this really happened. He'll soon be back to normal, on good, old Elysia, without any stray princes to take care of, and without a protocol to follow.

But until then…

“We are here,” Mikleo said when he saw a clearing in the forest.

Sorey took in air with a sound that was heard even through the helmet.

Actually, it was _way too_ _loud_.

“Is everything okay with your equipment?” Mikleo asked, turning around and eyeing the glass surface of the helmet. As he thought; the surface was scratched, but Mikleo knew how dangerous a small crack like this one could be. (Getting your head exploded because of the alien air pressure was nothing fun, you could trust him on this. There's a reason why the Celestial Record was filled with educational tales of beings who forgot to check their suits and were shredded to small, bloody bits. If they had blood, that is.)

Sorey shrugged. “It's okay, I think.”

To prove his point, he jumped in place a few times. “See?”

A part of the glass fell off and with a dull noise was swallowed by a nearby mean-looking plant.

Sorey blinked. His eyes, suddenly visible, reflected the weak light of the moon. “Uh.”

“Uh,” agreed Mikleo.

It should be noted that he stayed calm then and there. Yes, a million horrible possibilities rushed through his mind like a swarm of hungry hellions and, yes, his human body shook a little ( _only_ a little), but the words that came out of his mouth were not shaky or weak.

“So, you will die, huh?”

Sorey stared at him. “What?”

Mikleo lost his ability to speak. He gestured wildly towards Sorey instead.

“ _Oh_ ,” Sorey said, as if Mikleo somehow got his point across. “No, according to Lailah, I should be fine… The sun is the problem, you see. Not the atmosphere. And not the gravity.”

“Convenient,” Mikleo replied absentmindedly.

Sorey nodded and when the next part of the glass fell off, he proceeded to try to take off the helmet, failed, pressed some buttons on his suit, and finally, carefully took off the helmet.

Sorey’s face really seemed different in the moonlight. Sharper, somehow. Not that he was unrecognizable, no - but Mikleo still could feel a change, if not with the face itself, then maybe the expression that the Prince wore. He tried to remember exactly what kind of emotion was present, but he couldn’t quite capture it.

Human emotions were complicated.

As any responsible adult would, Mikleo decided to ignore the problem until it would disappear.

“We are here,” Mikleo said after a short time spent on bumping into various things in the dark.

It was probably not necessary to point this out. The enormous devastated building spoke for itself quite clearly. Both metaphorically and literally - the wind, suddenly starting to blow as if to emphasize the moment, made the old walls whistle. The ruin didn’t even need to be suddenly enlightened by a thunderstruck to look majestical.

(Besides, it couldn’t be. Elysian atmosphere was not as crazy as to allow a spontaneous eruption of electricity in the air. The consequences of something like that would surely be catastrophic. Could you imagine?)

“Nice,” said Sorey. “How do we get inside? There doesn’t seem to be any doors, or windows…”

“You need to fly.”

“What?”

“What?” replied Mikleo.

Sorey’s blank stare was his only answer. _This_ wasn’t in a Celestial Record… Maybe the author thought it was too obvious to mention that. Well, it definitely wasn’t obvious for Sorey.

“Ah,” Mikleo suddenly was struck by the realization. “You cannot fly.” He eyed Sorey’s suit. “Don’t you have a jetpack, or…?”

“I didn’t expect I would need it. I thought… Well, I was sure that your ruins would have an entrance of some sort. There was one in the building where you greeted us.”

“That’s because this ruin was built a long time ago! The one you saw is much newer, with accommodations specially made for non-shapeshifting species like humans. This, however, is strictly for the seraphim; the walls are not a border. There is a small entrance at the roof, but it’s… Well. It’s not as common to come through it. You see, that is connected to a tradition…” Mikleo met Sorey’s eyes and froze. “Uh, I’m sorry.”

“No, please continue,” Sorey said. His voice sounded a bit more hoarse, and his pupils were just a little bit more blown.

Mikleo cleared his throat. “It’s… Well. I suppose I could tell you all the details inside.” The weather was obviously making the human ill, and Mikleo could not afford this right now. The seraph smiled reassuringly, turned into a big thing with way too many claws and eyes.

Before Sorey could utter any word of protest, he was lifted a good few meters up, and then dropped unceremoniously into the void.

* * *

Sorey really, really tried to keep himself in check, but it was hard to control himself around Mikleo.

Mikleo was beautiful. Mikleo was smart, too. And he could turn into whatever he wanted, which for most would be terrifying, but for Sorey it was yet another amazing quality he valued in a partner. And to top it off, Mikleo was his bride. Or groom? It was hard to decide with a being that was technically genderless. He would have to ask Mikleo later.

But - and it needed to be stressed again and again by Sorey’s more rational part of  consciousness - Mikleo very clearly said that he was _not_ interested, and that was final. And no matter how that hurt, Sorey could do nothing about it. So he might as well stop moping around and start enjoying Mikleo’s presence for what it was worth.

And it really was something to be valued, Sorey was sure. Mikleo had a vast knowledge about the ruins, brought from both the Celestial Record and his own hypotheses, and it was simply fascinating to listen to.

Even if the primal part of Sorey was much more captivated by the way Mikleo’s lips moved than what he was actually saying.

“...and that’s why this figure is holding a _hjsdadsk_ ,” Mikleo said in his melodic voice, pointing at the mural of something ( _someone_ , Sorey corrected himself) holding a piece of some goopy substance that the ancient artist pictured with outstanding accuracy of goopiness. “To this day, it is believed to be a symbol of power and is believed to bring good luck to the owner.”

“Hmm,” said Sorey, definitely not looking at how Mikleo’s face lit up while talking about the ancient past of the seraphim. Mikleo was clearly glowing. In the sense that he was happy, and that he was shining in the dark, making it possible to see the multicolored murals on the walls and the floor.

“And that about wraps it up for the period of the Second Dynasty,” Mikleo said. “Now, this is when it gets really interesting…” Mikleo turned around, his gown swooshing on the floor. “Look here, Prince.”

Sorey obediently glanced at the painting that Mikleo was pointing at.

“Is that…” Sorey ran up to the mural to see the details. “Wait… I recognize this!” He turned around, mouth hanging open, to see Mikleo smiling widely; the endorphins in his bloodstream sung together and made him feel light-headed. “It’s the illustration of The Tales of The Intergalactic Shepherd, Part Five!”

“Yes!” Mikleo exclaimed. In a second, he was right next to Sorey. “It’s just like in the Celestial Record, isn’t it?!”

“Totally!” Sorey hooted. Having both Mikleo and the mural in the line of sight was simply delightful. It was too good to be true. “It really is here, just as it was written!”

Mikleo smiled, clearly pleased by Sorey’s reaction. His eyes flickered to the side of Sorey’s head. “I wanted to ask you for a while now, but, your earrings…”

“They are based on the Shepherd’s, yes!”

Mikleo laughed with pure, unrestrained glee. “I knew it! Oh, I’m so happy you can appreciate this as much as I do. I’ve never met anyone like that.”

Mikleo raised his hand and before Sorey could so much as twitch, he felt the tips of Mikleo’s hands caress the feather, so delicately it was barely noticeable. And scarcely, Mikleo’s skin brushed Sorey’s neck.

Something fluttered in Sorey’s chest.

But as soon as it appeared, Sorey remembered that he should repress it, for both his and Mikleo’s sakes.

He cleared his throat and took a step back. “I’m… I’m glad, too. And… I can make some earrings for you too, if you want.”

Mikleo opened his mouth and tilted his head slightly, seemingly trying to read Sorey’s expression. A strand of his hair fell on his face.

“I’m not mad or anything,” Sorey was quick to answer the non-spoken question before Mikleo could start to panic. “You are just… too close.”

“Too close,” Mikleo repeated. “Do humans not like physical contact? I seem to recall situations that suggest differently.”

“It’s not that humans don’t like it, it’s… It’s intimate. It’s something that people who are… emotionally close with each other do. Family. Friends.” Sorey swallowed. “Lovers.”

“Lovers? Does that mean that it is customary for fiances, too?”

“Y-yes.”

Mikleo’s eyes went wide. “I know little about the subject. Could you teach me the details?”

This was bad, this was _very_ bad, bad indeed-

Mikleo took a step forward. His big, curious eyes were fixated on Sorey, following his every move, every little change of his face.

Sorey was frozen, unable to do anything. Unable to think. The primal part of his brain went on strike and paralyzed every other function; he wanted to step forward, to do something reckless and sweep Mikleo off his feet…

But that wouldn’t be right, would it?

“I… don’t think it is appropriate,” Sorey said. He averted his eyes from Mikleo’s. “We are only pretending, after all. And I think you have enough knowledge of human customs to manage.”

Mikleo nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry for my boldness. Would you like to learn more about the seraphim customs? It may prove useful in the near future.”

That Sorey could agree to. “Yeah, I would appreciate that.”

He glanced at Mikleo from the corner of his eye. The seraph was biting his lip, as if trying to decide what to say first.

“The seraphim,” Mikleo started, “do not feel… human emotions. We are physically unable to - we do not have the necessary organs to synthesize hormones mandatory to provoke such reactions. Thus, the seraphim do not experience love as humans do. The seraphim only marry as a promise of partnership and help with breeding offspring.”

Sorey felt something move in his chest painfully.

Oh, here it was. Sorey should have expected this; it would be too nice for Mikleo to love him just like that, magically, no questions asked, like in those fancy fairy tales. But Sorey still couldn’t acknowledge it completely - his mind simply shut off, as if anticipating the risk of total mental breakdown about his first crush gone horribly wrong. Who knows what Sorey could do if truly desperate?

(Well, Lailah knew. She calculated this years ago. No one asked her for the results, though, so the results shall stay a mystery.)

“But…” Mikleo’s voice made Sorey snap out of his sudden heartbroken, melancholic stare into the abyss. “The seraphim, as you know, are able to shapeshift. When we change, our internal structure also changes; we mimic the organs of the other race as well as the outer appearance. It is a loophole some of us like to explore, as it provides us with the abilities of the other species that our primal form doesn’t allow… Like emotions.” Mikleo’s hand flew to his face, and Sorey was momentarily reminded of the sudden way the seraph burst into tears. It really must have been confusing, suddenly feeling so much.

Sorey’s heart stopped, and then started beating so fast that if Sorey had had his helmet on, the life monitoring systems would start an alarm.

“And do you… feel any emotions right now?” Sorey asked, trying to sound nonchalantly interested in the matter, and not at all like he was ready to die in the next second.

Mikleo blinked owlishly. “I am not sure. It is not easy to distinguish between the different moods, not having experienced them before.”

Of course. Of course.

“Alas, I can say without a doubt that your company is not unpleasant to me,” Mikleo continued. “Our similarities seem to draw us together.”

Sorey felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest and cover everything with a groovy sticky layer of blood. What a great way to go.

“M-Mikleo?” His voice shook.

Mikleo tilted his head.

“Would you… Would you like to show me what you look like? Your real form?”

Mikleo’s brows drew together in confusion. Once again, Sorey was amazed how expressive Mikleo’s face was - not restrained at all, childishly honest, and eerily clear. “Why?”

“I wish to see you. The real you,” Sorey said. He didn’t know why he said that - but at the same time, with obvious clarity it occurred to him that he couldn’t begin to understand Mikleo without this knowledge. Mikleo was a beautiful person in front of him, but he was also so much more, that Sorey hasn’t been able to see yet.

Mikleo rocked on his heels like a child. “I don’t know if it is a good idea,” he said. “Am I not enough as I am now?”

“You are enough, but… I have never seen a seraph in their true form,” Sorey said. “And I want to know more about you.”

Mikleo met his gaze and there definitely were emotions present in those eyes: surprise, disbelief, finally relief and gratitude.

With his face full of all those expressions, it was hard to believe that he could have ever been unfeeling.

“As you wish,” Mikleo murmured.

His glow strengthened. The white light enveloping his figure intensified so much it was difficult to look straight at him, but Sorey couldn’t look away. The game of delicate light was mesmerizing, swirling and blending with the air; the light shook and changed color, turning from milky white to pale blue with yellow and navy accents. It was hard to tell wherever Mikleo ended and the air began- in some way, Sorey could feel Mikleo’s presence just next to him, but at the same time, the seraph seemed so far away, so eerie and incorporeal, almost becoming the light itself.

“Beautiful,” Sorey breathed out.

And then, he kissed him.

* * *

Have you ever tried eating a pudding without a spoon, using only your bravery and mouth?

Now imagine if the pudding was sentient and also filling the entirety of your throat, making an active effort to flood your intestines. And glowing. And a little bit salty.

That's what Sorey’s first kiss was like.

* * *

At first, Mikleo was sure Sorey was trying to kill him.

But something didn’t seem quite right. From what Mikleo knew, humans tended to attack with some specific etiquette, including screaming “Die!” or “Aaargh!” at their target, as well as throwing sharp objects and/or especially hard parts of their bodies. The face was arguably not the best part to start an attack with. Nor was the tongue.

Sorey seemed to be using his tongue a lot while doing… whatever that was. The human seemed to care a great deal how much of Mikleo’s ectoplasm was in his mouth, so reluctantly, Mikleo proceeded to fill up even more room in Sorey’s throat.

“Mmm,” Sorey said, or at least tried to. It was hard to understand with his mouth full of Mikleo.

So. Not an attack. But then, what _was_ that?

If Sorey was a seraph, Mikleo would be sure that _this_ was an attempt at mating - it was forceful enough and uncomfortable, and definitely just as squishy. Then again, Sorey was not a seraph, so that option was also out.

Was Sorey trying to consume him? He wasn’t swallowing… And besides, Mikleo hadn’t heard of a human custom that would include devouring seraphim.

Suddenly, he remembered an illustration from one of Mayvin’s old tomes: two humans with their faces pressed together, female and male. He faintly remembered it being in a chapter about human mating… He must have read that before. What was it called again?

A… _kiss_. _Show of affection._

Mikleo would sigh with relief if he could.

Yeah, that must have been it. Though the illustration didn’t include just how much tongue action there was going on, at least from Sorey’s side of things.

Mikleo didn’t have the tongue to exactly copy the movement, but he was quite flexible. And he had much, much ectoplasm to share.

(Besides, some part of him - unexplored, freshly developed - was really, really glad that Sorey chose to kiss him.)

* * *

Neither of them could see how Sorey’s helmet lit up again and again from Lailah’s desperate calls.

Neither of them could be aware of Sorey’s crew leaving their ship in a hurry to search for the Prince.

And neither of them could see how the ship started on its own and rose into the air, glowing ominously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose: he's an alien, Sorey  
> Sorey: I know  
> Rose: he has _tentacles_ , Sorey  
> Sorey: I KNOW, RIGHT?!
> 
> anyway my point is: Sorey is a xenophile even in canon and you bet I'm going to scream about this


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is probably a lot of errors here that I can't see but I really wanted to finally post this  
> so please enjoy~

The irritating thing about the secret conspiracies is that they are, well, _secret._ Which means that the person orchestrating them rarely gets a credit for them – that is, if a conspiracy would be uncovered at all. But if it did, Symonne would know she did a shitty job and probably resign out of shame. That would be a disgrace for someone with her status.

Because, as no one knew, she was kind of good at her job.

Working for the Emperor of Rolance was tiring most of the time, but Symonne liked it nonetheless. It was exhausting, yes, but also satisfying, and she had dental included, so all things considered, her parents would be proud of her if they were aware that she was still alive.

(That was one of the things she had to do while starting this job, but oh, well, you can’t have everything, right?)

Taking this all into account, it should be a stupidly easy mission.

She drummed her fingers on the table and pressed the intercom button. “Are these tracking devices that we installed at the ship still active?”

“Yes,” the nervous voice replied. New voice, she couldn't recall hearing it before. So, a new worker, then. Good ol’ Heldalf has employed new people to work on the case, it seemed. Was finding some royal bastard that much of a deal?

Ah, whatever. The Emperor didn’t pay her to answer these questions.

“Then track them, you idiot,” she snarled into the intercom.

“The signal is all messed up. We can’t identify the source.”

“That’s impossible. No member of the crew of the ship could so much as begin to understand how the coding the signal worked, not even mentioning the backup, the backup of the backup and the backup of the backup of the backup.”

“Well...” The man’s voice trailed off. Symonne has dealt with enough of nervous first-timers to know the man _knew_ something, but wasn’t sure how to bring it up to her without making her furious. Which in itself was making her furious.

“Listen up, you piece of shit, you either talk and explain or I will personally tell the Emperor to make your whole family into alive pinatas that I will hang in my backyard and kick in spare time.”

“We suspect the prince’s android has managed to alter the signal.” The man’s voice didn’t falter. He’ll do, Symonne decided.

“Hmm.” Symonne’s fingers drummed a quick rhythm. Yeah, that was probably the only logical explanation - it was possible that the robot could work as a repeater, successfully changing the code into some gibberish.

But this solution had its flaws. And Symonne was good at finding the other’s flaws.

Symonne smirked. “Try finding the transmitter, then.”

Less than a minute later, she found them.

Less than two minutes, and she had complete control over the Rolancian spaceship.

* * *

Sorey was halfway choked to death when he felt the ground shake.

It, in itself, wasn’t as disconcerting as to make Sorey stop kissing Mikleo. The screaming, however - that was kind of unsettling.

As was the deafening explosion which made the ground shake violently.

Sorey lost his balance, made a desperate attempt at clinging to Mikleo - a bad idea, given that the alien was not really corporeal at the moment - and with a loud squish disconnected from Mikleo and fell back.

Mikleo’s light wavered. _What is happening?_ , his voice appeared in Sorey’s head.

Sorey took a few second to process that, no, he didn’t hit his head strongly enough to hallucinate this.

“I don’t know,” Sorey replied unhelpfully.

The ground shook again, and the walls rattled dangerously.

“We should get out of here,” Sorey added.

 _Yes_ , Mikleo’s voice rung in Sorey’s head. _I will escort you, Prince._

Sorey wondered briefly if Mikleo could see his thoughts as well. He was in Sorey’s mind, wasn’t he? That wouldn’t be that far of a stretch - there wasn’t anything about the seraphim being telepathic in any of the documents Lailah has prepared for him, so if anything, it should be possible.

Sorey really, really would prefer if Mikleo _couldn’t_ see his thoughts right now.

Sorey looked at Mikleo from the corner of his eye. The seraph has changed yet again into some kind of creature with many sharp teeth and claws, hopefully to get them out of this place, and not to murder Sorey. Overall, he seemed as inexpressive as always, at least how much Sorey could tell from Mikleo’s nonexistent face.

Mikleo gazed at Sorey with a pair with violently yellow eyes. Many, many eyes.

Sorey flushed red.

What has prompted him to- to _kiss_ Mikleo out of blue?! It was not how he had planned this! It should have been slower! More romantic! With many colorful flowers and sweet chocolates! And pretty sunsets! Like in the books!

Yet, the reality was unforgiving. Sorey’s endorphin-fueled, sleep-deprived mind cared a whole lot less about the romantic action than the tongue action.

Sorey shook his head and tried to calm himself when Mikleo put his hand (limb? Tentacle? Sorey wasn’t sure) around his waist and pulled him up, away, to the darkness of the night.

They will return to the conversation as soon as they will be done with the situation at hand, surely. How hard could it be?

* * *

Rose knew two things: firstly, they could be wiped out at any second.

And secondly, she was pretty sure that it was all Sorey’s fault somehow.

The dude will have to do a bit of explaining. You can’t just decide to go god knows where without informing anyone! It was her job to protect him, dammit. And now he was gone, and there was their ship hanging on the dark sky, only visible as this dark spot on the firmament, not allowing the light of the stars to reach eyes of the crew.

Rose knew as good as anyone what Rolancian ships could do. But this one… It was like comparing a bomb - a good bomb, but a bomb nonetheless - to a black hole. The best indication of this was the flaming crater on the ground, a good couple of hundreds of meters away from them and any seraphim building, but big enough to make one think what would happen if the shooter has decided to point the weapon at the more populated area.

Usually Rose would not be too moved by this. Rolancian ships had tendency to fall apart in the time inversely proportional to their firepower. Yet this one has survived so much till now… It was strange. And really good if it would be, you know, on _their_ side.

Unlike now.

“Oh my fucking god,” Rose murmured.

“ _Rose_. Calm down.” Laliah’s eyes glimmered, reflecting the moonlight. Or maybe they really were emitting light, Rose couldn’t quite tell.

They were pissing her off.

“We are _fucked_ , Lailah!” she growled. “We can die at any moment! Of course you wouldn’t be bothered by this with all of your philosophical android bullshit-”

“No,” Lailah cut her off, “I just don’t think they will attack. At least not now.”

Alisha, who was weirdly frozen between a jump and a step, seemingly preparing herself to intervene, stumbled and bumped into Rose. Rose helped her keep her balance, casually sneaking an arm around Alisha’s waist. It wasn’t quite the same with their suits on, but the gesture still managed to calm Rose’s nerves, even if only a little.

Alisha murmured a ‘thank you’ under her breath, and came back to her usual, royal attitude.

“What makes you think so?” she asked Lailah, straightening her spine.

Lailah’s eyes glimmered. “They could have gotten us by surprise - technically, that would be the most effective course of action if the desired result would be to annihilate us. Of course, there could be other factors I am unaware of, but from my expertise, if they managed to start the engines and made the ship hover at this height, they should also have a full access to any weaponry on the ship. Yet, they did not attack us yet, only gave us a warning shot, which leads me to believe that they must have another goal in mind.”

Rose huffed, but Lailah’s explanation seemed like the only logical explanation of the situation. But then… what _was_ the goal of the person - creature, existence, whatever - that took over their ship?

Maybe it was supposed to capture them? If everything has proceeded as always, they would still be at the ship, doing their respective chores (and, for fuck’s sake, she has _just_ managed to make the engine start when they had to leave). Rose still couldn’t decide whether it was unfortunate or not that Sorey decided to go on a fucking trip in the middle of the night, without alerting anyone and yes, Rose was fucking furious and out of her mind and Sorey was going to have his ass kicked _so_ badly-

Wait. Could it be that the point was to kidnap Sorey?

The thoughts raced through Rose’s mind; she had no evidence to support this, not even a hint, but the idea sticked to her head, refusing to go away. She had no way to confirm or deny this - not without Sorey, who was _not here_.

“We need to find him,” Rose said.

Both Alisha and Lailah nodded.

“We  need to ensure the safety of the Captain,” Lailah confirmed. “I can’t find his signal, but I can recreate the route he followed before that happened-”

“Wait, wait, wait - you can’t find the signal?” Rose almost shrieked. “What happened?!”

Lailah looked at her with the same unfazed expression as always. “My hypothesis is that his suit got damaged somehow, making the emitter break in the result. My research has shown that there are many violent wild species in the area.” She shrugged.  “Or the battery has just run out.”

“I’m going to get him,” Rose decided. She let go of Alisha and stepped forward.

Alisha’s hand stopped her. “No. You can’t go alone. I will go with you.” Alisha’s fingers tangled with Rose’s, and she gave her a small squeeze - reassuring and calming.  

Alisha moved her head.  “Lailah, you are the only one who can communicate with the seraphim. Could you try to explain the situation to them? Assure them that this is not our doing?”

“Yes. It is also possible they will know more about what could be going on,” Lailah said calmly. It must have been nice to be able to not feel stressed before confronting a council of possibly scared and/or enraged aliens who, for all Rose knew, could be preparing an attack on the crew in right this moment.

Things could really quickly get out of hand, but Lailah will be able to handle it. She was a professional.

But then, so was Rose, wasn’t she?

Rose squeezed Alisha’s hand back. “Send us the coordinates, Lailah.”

* * *

They weren’t moving as quickly as they wanted to, but at least Sorey knew where to go. The lights of the ship were a dead giveaway, shining in the depth of night like thousands of fireflies. Very deadly and very malevolent fireflies.

Sorey’s eyes met Mikleo’s - they were now more or less back to normal, if you could call it that when the person did not have a “normal” - and the silent understanding surged through them both.

They rushed, like there was a loud signal given. But of course there wasn’t any. Sorey just run and, well, Mikleo followed.

The seraph kind of wanted to say that he could probably transport them in much shorter time, but Sorey seemed to be having fun while running and tripping in the dark, so Mikleo gave up on that.

It may be interesting to add that Mikleo and Sorey has passed by Rose and Alisha in the forest. They didn’t notice each other, of course. Rose and Alisha were fairly quiet, having deep conversations that really came out of nowhere - well, maybe not nowhere; as everyone knows, life-or-death situations are usually the best to sort out any romantic shenanigans. And soon, they would start kissing passionately in the moonlight, but it wasn’t really important for Sorey right now.

What was important, however, was the fact that the seraphim all around them has either shed their human forms and retreated into shining floating balls of ectoplasm, or turned into a quite concerning hybrid of both.

Mikleo, however, stayed in his human body - well, excluding the eyes, that is. Sorey doubted he had ever seen a human with glowing eyes before.

“ _Rulay_!” Sorey heard a scream tear through the air - or no, not the air; the sound was reverberating right in his head. That was a seraph’s voice, though Sorey had a weird feeling that he have heard it before.

Maybe he did, maybe not. It was hard to tell when the seraph was in the form of a yellow slimy ball, not giving any clues on their identity.

Mikleo’s face muscles twitched when he saw the seraph. So, he recognized them. Or he had just gotten a lockjaw.

“ _Edna_ ,” Mikleo’s voice, sweet as honey, flooded Sorey’s mind. The amount of softness and gentleness with which Mikleo has spoken these words made Sorey’s mouth quirk in a smile-

-and then suddenly press his mouth together when he comprehended that these words were, in fact, not meant for him.

He definitely did not glare at the approaching seraph and definitely did not try to stare them down in a primal alpha male monkey way. And he definitely did not wish to have learnt the Elysian just to be able to know what Mikleo and Edna were talking about so lively.

 _It better be about the ship_ , Sorey thought in a very non-Sorey way.

Little did Sorey know, Mikleo and Edna were not exactly talking- communicating? - about the ship. Indeed, the conversation went kind of like this:

Edna: Rulay!

Mikleo: Edna! You are okay!

Edna: Of course I am, idiot. This flying toy would need a little bit more to kill me.

Mikleo: What about the others?

Edna: Oh, so you are not concerned about my wellbeing anymore? You are such a moodkiller, Meebo.

Mikleo: Stop rambling. Did someone…?

Edna: Only Mason.

Mikleo: Oh no… I… He was such a strong person. He will be missed greatly.

Edna: Wait, what? Meebo, you idiot. He was hit, not killed. Jeez, I expected you know a little bit more about your own biology to know that such a small explosion wouldn’t kill a child. Or it could kill a child, but thankfully, you were out of reach.

Mikleo: Oh. Good. I would hate to give a funeral speech again.

Edna: That’s your problem, Meebo. Personally, I am more concerned about the council trying to declare a war on Rolance right now.

Mikleo made a nondescriptive sound that even Sorey understood.

Not that Sorey understood anything more than that from the exchange. Maybe some ‘Rulay’s. And ‘Meebo’s.

“What’s going on?” Sorey asked when Mikleo jerked his head upright.

“We must go,” Mikleo replied.

That wasn’t the response Sorey was looking for, but it was hard to argue with Mikleo when the seraph rushed forward. And when Mikleo’s twin cape, now beautifully visible in the moonlight, flew in the air majestically, as if gods themselves decided that Sorey deserves an award after all these things he went through.

If not for the ship hovering above them, that would probably be the best night of Sorey’s life.

And definitely the longest. But that was unrelated to the ship.

Sorey managed not to trip and hurt himself while following Mikleo to, as Sorey realized after a few good seconds, a building he has seen before - the one he and his crew were greeted in.

The white cube of something that looked like pure, immaculate marble gleamed in the moonlight.

In this light everything seemed to gleam, really. It must have been the effect of the murder sun producing so much light which was being reflected on the moon, and then conveniently beaconing the whole planet with a little bit less killing intensity than during a day.

Sorey wondered for a split second if he should be staying in the range of rays for such a long time, but his mind simply gave up and accepted the inevitability of death without much opposition. It was worth it, with all these pretty sights in mind.

Sorey mindlessly followed Mikleo into the building through the hole in the front - _good thing they thought about that this time_ , Sorey mumbled in his mind - and immediately realized that he was witnessing a pandemonium.

It was probably difficult to look visibly pissed as ectoplasm, but the seraphim somehow managed. They glimmered in all kinds of vibrant colors, the cacophony of their shades filling the room and making the place look unnaturally bright and colorful, like a disco ball in a bar that was way too shabby and the staff has long since gave up on cleaning the once shiny thing.

It was nearly impossible to look at the crowd for long, and Sorey’s eyes in an act of self defense clung to the only two visible humanoid-looking living beings: the first one was obviously the Chief, and the second…

“Lailah!” Sorey called.

The woman turned her head from the Chief and Sorey was struck by the realization that he had probably interrupted something important.

The silence fell, and though the seraphim had no eyes, Sorey felt their metaphorical gazes fix on him.

“Uh,” Sorey said. “Don’t mind me. Just… Well. Continue.” He waved his hand awkwardly.

And then he realized that probably no one understood him. He looked up, on the place on the stairs when Lailah was talking - well, has been talking - with the Chief, and tried to convey to her without words that he would appreciate some help.

She, quite clearly, didn’t understand. “Hello, Captain. It’s good you are back. I will resume the conversation-”

Lailah’s voice abruptly cut off. Sorey prepared himself for her rant - she must have just noticed that he didn’t have his helmet on like she advised - and then Sorey remembered that Lailah was an android directly connected to the ship and all suits of the crew; she must have known that he has broken- er, taken it off some time ago. She couldn’t be shocked because of that.

“Er, Lailah?” Sorey asked.

No response. Lailah stayed as she was; half-turned, a smile on her face, mouth slightly agape, with unfocused eyes.

Well, that was definitely weird. Did she have a short circuit? No, it couldn’t be. If one thing, Rolance’s engineers knew how to make… _company_ robots which wouldn’t break easily.

Sorey has started to contemplate if running away from all these prying non-eyes was acceptable when Lailah spoke again.

“Greetings, Prince Sorey.”

Sorey nearly fainted.

That was _definitely_ not Lailah’s voice. Yet, he knew the sound of it a little bit more than he would like.

Sorey swallowed. “Gre-greetings, Symonne.”

The stuck expression on Lailah’s face was nearly more disturbing than the words themselves.

“Are you enjoying your time on Elysia, your Royal Highness? I would not imagine you had it in yourself to survive on an alien planet, all by yourself. What did you promise the Elysians in exchange for a shelter for you to hide from the Empire?”

Mikleo twitched - just barely, so that if Sorey hadn’t had him in the corner of his eye, he would have missed it.

It seemed to be enough for Symonne, though.

“I see.” Despite not being able to see it, Sorey could sense her smile - not reassuringly sweet, like Lailah’s, but wide and unsettling, like all of Symonne’s expressions.

Even before, in Rolance, Sorey wouldn’t dare to disobey her. He had known exactly what could happen if he displeased her - she was one of the few who his father has granted the right to discipline his children. And said discipline was more often than not delivered in a way that Sorey was sure was breaking at least a few international laws.

Now, looking into Lailah’s eyes - still familiar, but at the same time making Sorey recall all the times when he was small, helpless and too scared to cry - Sorey froze, his mind whispering all the threats that could become reality if Sorey didn’t obey. And Sorey wanted to give in, just to make these voices quiet.

But he wasn’t in Rolance anymore, and he wasn’t just responsible for himself.

With the enormous, almost impossible effort, Sorey forced himself to straighten his spine and raise his chin, looking straight in the eye of danger.

“State your purpose here,” Sorey said in a tone that was nothing like him.

He had exactly knew what - who - it resembled, though. He have heard this voice enough on the military parades, announcements, in the castle, echoing through the corridors, making all the members of the household shiver, the servants and family members alike.

The growl of his father’s - something between threatening, sly, and demanding.

Symonne must have noticed that, too. She hesitated - just for a second, but nonetheless.

“My mission is to capture you and transport back to Rolance, dead or alive,” she replied in a hard, military voice of her.

Mikleo made a small movement, like he wanted to say something, but Sorey was quicker.

“What will happen if I refuse?”

“Malevolence. Destruction of the planet. We have a few options to choose from.” The sound of her voice echoed in the building, not disrupted by any other sounds. Every seraph seemed to be listening - even though most of them couldn’t understand what was being said, everyone universally was aware that whatever was going on was an Important Key Event.

Sorey had the urge to glance at the Chief - just to try to get across that they should be careful, not interfering, not moving a muscle - but he didn’t dare to take his eyes off Lailah. Off Symonne.

“The virus of malevolence is on the ship,” Symonne continued. “It is ready to be released at any moment. It was a part of the offensive weaponry, you know. Most of the races of Glenwood are susceptible to it. And it just so happens that the seraphim are _extremely_ susceptible.” Sorey could almost hear the smile in her voice.

So that’s how it was going to be. Simple trade. Sorey or the lives of all the living things on Elysia.

Sorey swallowed.

“If I agree, will you let the rest of the crew go?”

Symonne sounded pleased, yet as professional as always. “My orders are to bring you, and you alone. It is a family matter. The rest, even the Princess of Hyland, will be free to go. I will-”

“No.” Mikleo’s voice pierced the air.

Lailah’s eyes snapped to the seraph, and Sorey’s heart jerked.

“Mikleo,” he started, as quiet as he could, “please, I-”

“I _won’t_ allow it!” Mikleo shouted. His face twisted, his features becoming sharper. He bared his teeth - acute, long and definitely not human.

“Be quiet, seraph whore,” Symonne growled.

Mikleo jumped.

Sorey has seen Mikleo fight before. He had felt it himself. Mikleo had fought like a she-cat when you threaten her kittens; quick, merciless, painful.

Now imagine if said she-cat had her whole clan threatened instead, was extremely stressed and confused by her own flood of emotion, and had absolutely no impulse control whatsoever.

Thinking that way, it was almost understandable that, with an unholy screech, Mikleo had bitten Lailah’s head clear off before Sorey could utter a sound of protest.

Not that it wasn’t a shock for Mikleo, too. But Mikleo was running on the endorphin high, and, well, he was not in position to contemplate his own feelings. He just went with his instincts.

Human and seraph instincts.

Mikleo spit out the remains of wires and mechanical cords that once held Lailah’s body together. “Prince Sorey.”

Sorey snapped out of his shock. “Y-yes?”

Mikleo descended from the stairs quickly, focusing his violet eyes on Sorey with a determined look on his face. “It’s after midnight.”

Sorey could barely focus on anything, but he managed to utter a shaky: “Uhh?”

“It’s The Day.” Mikleo’s eyes were inscrutable. “And I’m choosing you as my mate.”

Sorey blinked, twice - and in a flash, the world around him jumped, turned upside down and reconstructed itself, looking almost exactly as it was before, but with a small difference in Mikleo’s form. Everything changed, but at the same time, nothing has changed at all. Suddenly, Sorey couldn’t see Mikleo as _just_ Mikleo - it was like seeing him for the first time. And in some strange way, Sorey felt as if he really was seeing Mikleo - the true Mikleo, not the face or the other form; the essence that made Mikleo - _Mikleo_. Everything, from the glimpse in his eye to the air around him became sharper, stronger, and clearer.

Sorey couldn’t have known this, but being mated with a seraph was quite an adrenaline and dopamine rush to mammal’s brain. In fact, it was a little bit too much - too many hormones all at once, weighting on his brain and making his neurons go berserk.

There was only one way for his brain to prevent itself from frying to a crisp.

Mikleo smiled. “I’m sorry, Prince.”

And before Sorey could ask Mikleo to drop all these stupid formalities, the world went black.

* * *

This was, single-handedly, probably the stupidest thing that Mikleo has ever done.

Well, not yet. But he was going to. He would, soon.

He felt a prickle of guilt in his heart when he saw how Sorey hit the ground, but it was inevitable, because Sorey would never, ever agree to this.

Well. Probably not the mating part. The humans were much more liberal in that area than seraphim were. But if Sorey had known exactly what Mikleo’s plan was, he would surely object. It was stupid and selfish, but it was what Mikleo wanted to do.

What he had to do.

Mikleo smiled. All his life, he was sure he was going to sacrifice his freedom and happiness for the wellbeing of his people, but now… When Sorey looked so sure, so determined that he would let himself be taken…

With an outstanding clarity Mikleo understood that he wanted to protect Sorey with all his might. That he couldn’t let Sorey be taken away. Can’t let them hurt him, no matter the cost.

_Is this what human love is like?_

But the seraphim cared about him, too. Yet, Mikleo wasn’t the Rulay just because of his connections to the Chief. And everyone understood. Even the Chief himself did not try to stop him. Not after he officially chose the Prince as his mate. That was quite a game changer - he could feel the surprise of theirs when he had said his words and reached out to Sorey.

The sweet scent of the bonding hormones in the air was a rare occurrence; this was supposed to be more formal, private, but Mikleo has done it without as much as thinking about it. It felt natural to claim Sorey in front of the crowd, and it was also the simplest way to achieve his goal… It was a logical thing to do.

So why did he feel like his chest was going to burst?

Mikleo sighed and shook his head. The dark brown strands of hair fell into his green eyes.

He looked at the sky. It was clear, like before. He was going to miss the sight of Elysia’s constellations.

“I’m sorry,” Mikleo said in Sorey’s voice, and let himself be lead to his fate.

* * *

If it wasn’t for a sharp slap in the face, Sorey would surely not wake up till a long time later. Thankfully, there was always someone to kick him in the most needed way.

Sorey was met with the flushed face of Rose. “What the fuck happened?!”

Alisha helped Sorey sit more or less upright on the probably-stone floor. He moaned - he had hit the floor quite hard, didn’t he? - and tried to remember what happened.

The last thing he could recall was…

“Mikleo!” He jumped to his feet and immediately tripped on air. Only Alisha’s hands stopped him from falling on his face.

Sorey didn’t care. He searched around, his eyes snapping from one ball of light to another, but he _knew_ Mikleo wasn’t here. He was feeling it, deep in his bones - the absence of Mikleo hurt like he had a hole in the middle of his stomach.

The Chief wasn’t here, either. Only the lone seraphim were still there, ignoring the humans and each other. They didn’t look like they were too moved by the threat of long and painful death.

Sorey was almost offended that no one tried to wake him up, but at the other hand, they probably had some bigger problems at hand.

“He’s not here,” Alisha said. “Lailah is not here anymore, either.” She shot a glance to a mangled body on the floor. Someone must have kicked the head because it was laying at the bottom of the stairs, long hair scattered everywhere.

_Sorey didn’t care._

“I must find him.” Sorey shook Alisha’s hands off him. “I need to-”

“You are not going anywhere without explaining yourself!” Rose yelled. She grabbed him by the front of his spacesuit and pressed closer to himself, so that his face was almost smashed against her helmet. “What the fuck happened here?! Why did you leave us like that?!” She shook him violently. “We left everything to go with you! Everything! Stop screwing around!”

Rose shoved him, hard, and this time Alisha’s hands didn’t catch him. He landed on his back with a dull sound.

“It’s not a game, Sorey! Our lives depend of whether or not you can behave! Grow up, for fuck’s sake!” Rose screamed again. The front of her helmet was hazy from the air she was breathing out; if she hadn’t had her helmet on, Sorey was sure the sound of her voice would be overwhelming.

He couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from quirking a little.

Sorey yelped when a fully armoured foot struck his stomach. He turned and raised his legs up to cover himself, and got a fleeting glimpse of Alisha holding Rose back. Or, at least, trying.

“Rose, he’s got-”

“No!” Rose pushed Alisha away. “It is not enough! He put us all in danger! He put _you_ in danger!” Her voice hitched. “He can’t act like that! He can’t be that irresponsible, dammit! I can’t…”

Alisha put her arm around Rose and hugged her, pressing the fronts of their helmets together.

Rose hung her head, the hair covering up her face from the unwelcome looks.

Like Sorey’s.

Sorey sat up straight on the floor, again, and wondered if he would get another smack in the ribs if he tried to stand up.

He didn’t have to take the risk.

“Are you done?” The tired voice sounded almost out of place. It was easy to locate the source; the only seraph in a human form, standing on one of the stairs, eyeing them up. Sorey recognized her without a trace of doubt.

“You are a friend of Mikleo,” he not as much asked as declared. “I didn’t know you can speak Rolancian.”

“The fact that I know your language does not mean that I wanted to talk to you.” The seraph in the form of the girl shrugged. “Besides, it matters not. Now, are you going to sulk or are we rescuing him?”

“Wait, what?”

Her expression stayed as unimpressed as before. “He turned himself in in place of you, idiot.”

Sorey froze. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.

Mikleo did… what?

“Why would he-” Sorey started, but the seraph girl interrupted him.

“He chose you as his mate,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Somewhere out of Sorey’s sight, Rose sniffed, gripped Alisha’s hand and, not without Alisha’s subtle words, decided on postponing her rant about responsibility

Sorey’s clueless expression must have given away that he had no idea what Edna was talking about, because the seraph glowed yellowishly, probably with irritation.

“Maotelus, you really are clueless, aren’t you?” She tapped the umbrella in her hand on the floor impatiently. “We don’t have time for that. You are lucky I thought of coming here in the first place… Hello, welcome to accelerated course on how to not be dumb! The short version is: Seraph choosing a mate is more than just choosing a partner to raise our young. It’s a spiritual bond. Unbreakable one. You are not a seraph,” she glared at him, “so it does not affect you as much. But Rulay is fully bonded with you now. He feels where you are, can sense what you feel.”

Sorey opened and closed his mouth. This… this couldn’t be happening. He and Mikleo were… but before… No, it couldn’t be, none of this could be real, not the ship, not the bonding, nothing-

He slapped himself across the face.

It burned as hell and he nearly knocked himself out again, but the reality stayed stubbornly as it was. Mikleo still was away.

The seraph, Rose and Alisha looked at each other with common understanding.

(It should be noted that Edna had no idea what have just happened, but just assumed that Sorey was acting like an idiot. She wasn’t too far from the truth.)

Sorey coughed. “Please, continue.”

“He is not young enough to not be able to control himself, so he must have knocked you out on purpose. I guess he wants to force you into staying safe no matter what. He had always been a sly little brat.” The seraph looked awfully interested in her own fingernails, despite what she was talking about.  “The ship is still here, though. I don’t know what it means.”

“This sounds awfully like a trap,” Alisha murmured.

“Maybe. Maybe Rulay is trying to get us some time. Or maybe he is just that stupid, I dunno - the thing is, you made a mess and now you need to clean it up.” She raised her eyes to meet Sorey’s. “You two are bonded. You will be able to find him and convince to come back if you hurry.”

“How?” Sorey asked.

The seraph shrugged. “Well, I dunno. Think of something, oh Great Prince of Rolance. If Rulay has thought you were worthy of being his mate, you can’t be _that_ stupid.”

“This is insane,” Rose murmured from the back.

“Good thing I am insane, then,” Sorey replied. He wasn’t sure if he was joking.

The lights of the ship were visible even from the inside of the building.

And Sorey had a plan.

* * *

He, in fact, did not have a plan.

“You are _not_ going to charge in,” Rose growled.

Sorey huffed. “Well, think of something better, then!”

“Okay. Sit down and wait. The problem will go away by itself.”

“And what will _that_ fix?!”

“You are saving the Rulay,” Edna said in just a mildly threatening tone from across the room.

“Of course we are!” Sorey said. “That’s the whole point!”

Rose threw her hands in the air. “We don’t have a way to do so! We don’t have a ship! We don’t have Lailah to hack the ship! We don’t even have some way to get to the ship itself unnoticed, not to mention we wouldn’t be able to pass by the security! It’s basically a flying fortress!”

“Every fortress can be conquered,” Alisha said.

“We just need to find something to blast it with,” Sorey added.

Alisha looked at him with a hint of confusion. “It’s… not exactly what I was suggesting.”

Rose finally put her hands down. “What do you mean?”

“The engine is still broken, right? Or at least not repaired completely, if I remember correctly.” Alisha tilted her head. “There must be a way to exploit this weakness. Even if it works, it has to be more fragile than usual.” She blinked, finally realizing that everyone was looking at her. “That is, uh, just my opinion.”

Rose looked at Alisha in shock, which then turned into a true admiration. “If not these helmets, I would kiss you right now.”

It was hard to tell through the glass, but Sorey had a feeling that Alisha blushed.

He also had the feeling that Mikleo was very much not okay, and that stopped him from making an overly loud remark about wasting time on being all flirty. Which would probably be a bit hypocritical, but it didn’t matter, since Sorey didn’t say it.

“That still doesn’t explain how we are going to get into the ship, though,” Sorey said.

Rose had a hard time taking her eyes off Alisha, but she finally managed to focus her gaze on Sorey.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rose said.

“What?”

“Just trust me, will you?”

Well. Sorey didn’t have a better plan, for sure, now that full-on front attack was out.

He hesitantly nodded.

Rose smirked.

* * *

‘Trust me’ has turned out to be a much better advice than Sorey had expected. Surely, he was beaten up beyond belief and he had a feeling that his face will never look the same again, but he had finally managed to claw his way through the conveniently placed emergency hatch in the bottom of the ship.

As to how he did it… Well. Sorey would really not want to speak of it ever again. Ever. It would be nice if all the memories related to the event would disappear, too.

The important thing was that he was in the ship, sore but alive, and had a clear goal in mind: to find Mikleo, kick the engine to pieces, and heroically jump out of the ship with explosions lighting up the night sky behind him, Mikleo in his arms. He couldn’t think of any specific way he could achieve that, but, hey, where there’s a will there’s a way, right?

The biggest problem was, he had no idea where Mikleo was. And he had no idea if Symonne had already known that he was in the ship. It was eerily quiet, and eerily casual inside; Sorey could see the books scattered on the floor, laying in the same way as they did when they crashed - er, landed on Elysia.

(Sorey promised Lailah to clean them up, but, well, life kind of got in the way. And, you know, these weren’t even some impressive books. Only some cheesy romances with overly complicated plots leading to characters getting down and dirty with each other in the most ridiculous ways. Not a great example of Rolancian literature, but Sorey loved them nonetheless. It was almost a shame they were laying there… The ideal reached the ground.)

Sorey could almost believe that it was just a one big joke orchestrated by his family and friends - that is, if he didn’t know that his family had absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. Which was making all of this even weirder. Shouldn’t Symonne try to stop him, if she knew he was in the ship? Did she really believe that Mikleo - Sorey felt a rush of anxiety just thinking about him - that Mikleo _was_ Sorey? But then, why didn’t she just order the ship to fly back to Rolance, if she was convinced she has completed her mission?

There were way too many unanswered questions. Sorey decided it would be best to ignore them for a time being, since, as for now, everything seemed to be going as smoothly as it could with Mikleo being abducted and a threat of the extermination of everything on the whole planet.

Thinking about this, Sorey didn’t feel like he was the most competent person for this mission.

True, like Edna has said, he was feeling different - like his body has become a Mikleo-fueled Mikleo detector, pressing lightly in the corner of his mind - but that was it. He wasn’t as good at fighting as Rose, or as talented at strategizing as Alisha, or as adaptable as Lailah, or as confident as Edna… The only thing that was making him special was the fact that, for some reason, Mikelo has chosen to sacrifice for him.

Or maybe it wasn’t even that. What if Mikleo had thought that Sorey was not going to surrender to Symonne? That he would rather let them all die out of some stupid sense of pride, rather go down with everyone than be defeated?

What if Mikleo saw how scared Sorey was and came to a conclusion that Sorey was too weak to protect anyone?

And now, Sorey couldn’t make a step forward. He was completely frozen. He couldn’t save anyone. It would be so much smarter to turn around and admit that he couldn’t do this. So much easier.

And so much _wrong_.

Mikleo was here. Alone, at the mercy of a person he couldn’t know, but who he was aware had the power to destroy everyone and everything Mikleo knew; his friends, family - the ones Mikleo undoubtedly loved and cherished, enough to agree to be used for their safety again and again. Enough to agree to share his life with someone he didn’t love.

And the awareness of this hurt, but… But it was _Mikleo_. Strong, and beautiful, and the one Sorey wanted to protect. Mikleo was worth it.

Sorey took in a deep breath of chilly air of the ship and made a step forward into a dark corridor.

He cursed the engineers again for making this place so dark and gloomy. It was really the last thing he needed right now, to be ambushed because he wouldn’t be able to see anyone creeping up on him, hidden in the edgy darkness of this place. It would be so much easier if he had borrowed a helmet from Rose or Alisha… But it was a bit too late to think about this. Sorey should have been better at improvising. And besides, they needed their helmets on the ground.

He stepped as lightly as he could, but the sound was still ringing in his ears as he tiptoed through the corridors. He could recognize where he was - the days spent on the ship while being bored to the breach of insanity had an effect of boosting his adventurous tendencies, and he was quite sure there wasn’t any part of a ship he hadn’t seen before, and that included that two weird hidden passages that could be opened only by jumping in place a couple of times and then falling on a slide. (Sorey was getting really bored sometimes, okay? It’s not like he had anything better to do then. You could say saving the planet was a nice improvement of his interests.)

Sorey turned into the first corridor on his left. Yes, that was it - like he had thought, he was on the residential level, but in the uninhabited area. There were far too many rooms for Sorey and his crew to properly use, so they just left them as they were - halls and halls of empty, identical cabins.

No one really liked going through here. There was something creepy about all this dead silence and flickering lights. Rose was sure the place was haunted, but Sorey has spent too much time here to really believe it. Though he still didn’t want to take a risk.

He quickened his steps.

There was no point in remaining there. Sorey seriously doubted that Symonne would choose to communicate with him in one of the random rooms out there - no, it wasn’t her style. She would want to make this official, worth of the Empire. And if she couldn’t be physically here… Then, she would use the biggest screen on the ship to communicate with enough force of intimidation. And the biggest room she could use was...

Sorey turned into the next corridor and walked down the dark stairs, into the engine room.

He could feel it in his bones he was getting closer to a place where he was supposed to be; he could feel a shift in the air, the barely palpable tingling on his skin, whatever he could call it. The only thing he was certain of was that Mikleo was near, almost there, just slightly out of his reach-

Sorey slammed the door of the engine room open.

“Mikleo!” Sorey called.

It was strange to see himself shiver and turn around, but that was Sorey was the witness of. Mikleo’s eyes - _his_ _own_ eyes - widened in shock. Even though Mikleo didn’t technically look like himself, there was no doubt; every cell in Sorey’s body was screaming that _it is Mikleo_ and _he is stressed_ and _he smells really good, doesn’t he_?

“Sor-Sorey?” It was Sorey’s own voice, but something underlying it was too sweet, too delicate and too alluring not to be Mikleo.

Sorey rushed forward. “Mikleo, I-”

“You are not supposed to be here!” Mikleo screamed in Sorey’s voice. He made a step back, then another, constantly out of Sorey’s reach. “You are… No, no, that’s all wrong, please, go-”

“I’m not leaving you!” Sorey raised his voice. He finally managed to shorten the distance between them; he reached out and grabbed Mikleo by his arm.

It would probably be quite weird to kiss Mikleo - well, Mikleo was technically _himself_ right now - so Sorey stopped himself, but just barely. Mikleo was intoxicating, Mikleo was addicting, Mikleo was-

“You don’t understand! They-” Mikleo made an uncoordinated gesture with his hands towards the panel on the wall. “You need to-”

The panel flickered.

“No!” Mikleo slipped from Sorey’s hands and rushed to the controls, evidently trying to stop whatever was happening, but it was too late.

The screen lightened up in a flash and the image of Symonne appeared, big and threatherning.

Sorey swallowed.

Mikleo froze.

“Interesting,” Symonne said. Her eyes moved, focusing on Mikleo. She regarded him for a second, and then finally focused on Sorey. She smiled. “I knew something was up. The heart rate didn’t match the one I had previously encountered. I ascribed it to the adrenaline rush… but I guess I was wrong.” Symonne kept looking at Sorey, and Sorey was sure that she _knew_. “Almost worked, I give you that. Almost.”

Mikleo’s form shooked. And then it gave up.

Mikleo exploded into light.

“Mikleo!” Sorey screamed. He reached out, but he couldn’t grab the body; his hands were going through the mass, suddenly too ductile, and through Sorey’s mind rushed a thought that the seraph was _melting_ -

The seraph gasped - as one can gasp without lungs - and suddenly, on the floor, there he was; in his human form, conveniently staying in his clothes, but not-so-conveniently glowing and leaking some transparent fluid here and there. And he was definitely not Sorey-like anymore.

And he wasn’t moving.

Sorey kneeled in front of Mikleo and took his hand to check the pulse - but that would be meaningless, since it was doubtful that Mikleo had any pulse to begin with; the panic creeped slowly into Sorey’s mind, clouding his thoughts. What he was supposed to do?! How was he supposed to protect Mikleo like that?!

It was wrong, so, so wrong, and now he didn’t have Mikleo to help him.

Symonne knew that. Sorey could see that in her pleased expression.

“Don’t worry, Prince,” Symonne purred. “His cheap copying skills were merely distracting me, so I turned them off with just a bit of compatible hormones. Almost too easy to change, these seraphim. It’s much better now, isn’t it? No more tricks. No more cheating.” She examined her long fingernails. “But I don’t like being cheated on, you know. This is unacceptable. It is an insult for the whole Empire that I represent. It can’t go unpunished.”

 _Preparing for detonation_ …

No, no, no!

“Symonne, please! Don’t do it! I will-I will go!”

Symonne was unfazed. “Of course you will. You are on the ship already.”

“No, please. I will- I will do anything! Please, don’t do it! I will-” The words felt heavy on his tongue, but what he was supposed to do?! He couldn’t- not with Mikleo here, defenceless, at mercy of Symonne.

“Anything, you say?” Her eyes glimmered. “Well, how about this; maybe you could punish the culprit yourself? No one else would need to die, then. Only the deceiver.”

Sorey’s breaths were short and shallow. “What- what are you…”

“I taught you, Sorey.” Her cold eyes peered into Sorey’s. “ _It_ is right in front of you. The traitor who stained the trust of the Empire. What do we do with the traitors, Sorey?”

No.

No, no, no, he couldn’t, he was _not_ going to do this-

“We punish them,” Sorey said.

“What is the punishment for treason, Prince Sorey?”

Inhale. Exhale. “Death.”

Symonne smiled, almost tenderly. “See? That wasn’t that hard. Before your eyes there is a traitor, Sorey. But every person on this planet is a traitor, too. Which one are you going to punish?”

Sorey’s entire body was shaking. He couldn’t find a way out of this situation; if Mikleo was conscious, maybe they could come up with something together - some brilliant, unexpected plan that would save all in the matter of minutes - but now, all the possibilities mashed together in Sorey’s head, turning into a cacophony of choices, cause-and-effect chains that were leading to nothing. He couldn’t find the solution. He couldn’t see a way that would save both Elysia and Mikleo, not with Symonne there, hovering over them like the ship over the planet. She was in control. She knew everything.

And there was no one to help Sorey.

He looked at the knife strapped to his hip.

Sorey knew how to do this. Months, years of training with Rose prepared him for every possibility - except for this one, apparently.

There wasn’t any other option. There wasn’t. There just… _wasn’t_.

And yet...

“It’s stupid,” Sorey said suddenly.

Symonne twitched. “What?”

Sorey stood up. “It’s stupid. You making me choose. It is stupid. What will you gain that way? This makes no sense. You even offended Mikleo. You called him a whore. He probably doesn’t even know what that means!” He threw his hands up in the air. “It is stupid. I refuse. Do whatever you want.”

He threw the knife to the floor. It hit, tip first, and dramatically stayed upward in the ship’s floor.

Now Symonne was definitely off the track. “You… You want me to destroy the planet?”

Sorey laughed. It came off much more high-pitched than he had expected. “Oh, fuck you. It’s not fair. And it’s stupid. I don’t understand. I don’t understand you, I don’t understand why anyone would do this, so I’m not playing it. Fuck you. I’m not going to do anything.”

He sat down again and folded his arms, wincing at Symonne.

“You are aware that I need to simply press the button to bring the apocalypse to Elysia?” Symonne asked.

“Yeah, of course. Big deal. I’m crying tears of regret. Waaah.” He rolled his eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sorey? I’m really going to do this.”

“Yes, do whatever you want. Proceed with pissing off a heir to the throne, this is surely worth it.”

“You aren’t a heir to the throne.”

“But I could be. I would just need to kill everyone else. And in the state I am in now, I don’t think anyone could stop me, really.”

“It’s way too out of your character to behave like this.”

“You are threatening my friends and my mate, this is exactly the right time to act out of character. Extreme emotions, border experiences, that thing. Anyway, fuck you.”

“You are behaving like a child. Your father-”

“La la la, I can’t hear you!” Sorey covered his ears. “I’m not choosing! Go home!”

“For fuck’s sake, Sorey, you can’t just-”

Sorey started rolling on the floor while singing an impromptu song about spies of the Empire being the loneliest losers on the face of the galaxy. It had a nice ring to it, if he could say so.

“Okay, I’m just-” Symonne starting hitting the buttons of the keypad in front of her, just out of Sorey’s view. “It’s… Fuck, could you stop that?!”

Sorey made a point to shout a very offensive comment about Symonne’s attire.

Symonne’s eye twitched. “You’ve done it, kid. Congratulations. Prepare to have your whole environment blown up to shit by the forces of microbiology.”

Sorey braced himself. He looked at the black box in the corner of the room - the engine, with a green crystal still glowing mysteriously, as it always did. He would only need to run forward and destroy it, and then all the power would be cut off…

Sorey took in a sharp breath and turned around to make a mad rush to a panel behind him.

Symonne raised her eyes, alarmed by his sudden movement. “What are you…”

Sorey didn’t stop to scream yet another offensive thing at her. He looked at the many, many buttons in front of him, and in a split second decided on the most effective way of proceeding.

He did what he could best; he slammed his entire body on the controls.

There was angry beeping, a high-pitched tone, and the big, red warnings appeared on the screen, covering half of Symonne’s face.

“What are you-” Symonne started, but the ship system outshouted her.

 _Preparing to initialize the self destruction procedure_ , the mechanical, soulless voice declared as the lights over Sorey’s head flickered.

Sorey sighed with relief.

“How did you-” Symonne’s voice shook when the ship jerked wildly.

Sorey almost lost his balance; only the panel behind him supported him enough to not let him fall down on his face, which would be extraordinary undignified, given that it was supposed to be the big moment of Sorey’s triumph.

Even if said moment included Sorey’s upcoming death.

Sorey shrugged with a smug smile on his face. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just lucky today. But I thought, hey, what is that big red button doing there? It’s not like I have anything to lose.”

Symonne’s eyes were wide from disbelief. She tried to utter a word, but halfway given up in favour of rapidly smashing the controls in front of her, lips pressed tight with visible effort.

Sorey didn’t really care about it, to be honest. He knew about this ship enough to be aware that the autodestruction command could be only turned off manually - which was a bit weird, but Sorey didn’t argue with that logic. He made a point to learn all about this after Lailah’s ‘joke’. Has that really happened just a couple of days ago? It surely didn’t feel like it.

With the sound of keys smashing, Symonne shouting and the emergency sirens howling in the background it was almost comical to drag Mikleo’s body on the floor, but Sorey managed. It was almost too easy to fit Mikleo’s too light body into the one of the emergency escape  capsule on the walls.

Sorey supposed he should say something sweet and caring, like in all of those romances he has read, but nothing was coming to his mind. Must have been the shouting what was distracting him. (“Shut up, you piece of shit, I’m not paying you for telling me that’s impossible!”) He has never been good with words, too. If he had tried to say something cute - probably rhyming, too, because the tradition would definitely then be in place - he would probably fail spectacularly. And it would not be nice, not in front of Symonne. She could turn out to be enough of a jackass to record it and then use it as a great entertaining material till the end of her life.

And besides, Sorey was not sure how conscious Mikleo was. So, probably better not to make a fool out of himself. Not now.

Not ever, probably.

“You like my earrings, right?” Sorey said to the unmoving human form of Mikleo. “They would suit you, I think. I mean, everything suits you.” Sorey snickered, ignoring the shouting and static countdown in the background. “And you know what? You can have them. I don’t think I will need them anymore.”

He quickly unclasped the jewelry from his ears. He put the feathers in Mikleo’s hand - Sorey really hoped that the feathers will not be damaged dramatically by the impact when the pod hits the ground. That would definitely decrease the value of the gesture. Sorey also wished that Mikleo would not suddenly change back into his true form and drown the delicate feathers with his… body.

And Sorey really, really hoped that Mikleo would appreciate the gesture.

He closed Mikleo’s hand, partially to secure the earrings and partially because he wanted to feel Mikleo’s skin one more time, and stepped back.

Hitting the switch was almost too easy. With a satisfying ‘wooosh’, the capsule was gone - flying down, down, to soon meet the surface of Elysia.

“Calm down,” Sorey said, tearing his eyes off the glass surface where a second ago was Mikleo and once again glancing at Symonne. “That’s what you wanted, right? I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Symonne growled something under her breath and resumed smashing the buttons. She murmured, she shouted at the poor boy next to her - Sorey was only able to see a brief glimpse of light hair - and then, slowly, Symonne raised her head.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Sorey said, sitting on the floor. “I’m staying. That way it will all end, right?”

She blinked, twice, as if not believing that she have heard him correctly. “Why… why not just escape? You could have run while I was distracted.”

“That wouldn’t solve anything, would it?” Sorey shrugged. “You would just send another ship. You need me alive or dead, and I don’t think that me being alive in Rolance would last long, too, so…Yeah. I’m staying here. You can watch me, don’t worry. Please feel free to command me to do anything if you think that will increase my credibility.” Despite all the pathos of the moment, Sorey found it increasingly hard not to laugh at Symonne’s expression, full of honest, unblemished shock. He snickered lightly. “Seriously, I’m done. As long as you keep your end of a promise, I’m all right with all of this.”

Symonne straightened her back. “Rolance empire always keeps their promises. The virus will not be released if I won’t give a command.”

“I have your word, then. Thank you.” Sorey bowed his head shortly. “Are you recording this?”

Symonne nodded. She quickly gestured to the people behind her and said a few words, but they was too quiet for Sorey to catch.

“Thank you,” Sorey repeated.

Well. That was it, wasn’t it? Nothing left to do but wait.

Sorey straightened his legs and focused on the mechanical, metallic voice reverberating in the room, and probably in all the empty halls of the ship. _Twenty. Nineteen_...

It’s going to look like fireworks, isn’t it? A big firework in the sky to celebrate the defeat of Rolance. To start a new day, with a miraculously saved Rulay and less miraculously killed Prince.

No, not Prince. Now, he was Sorey. Just Sorey.

And it was his time to shine.

_Twelve. Eleven…_

Oh, he really had a bad luck with countdowns, didn’t he? It all started with a countdown, so Sorey supposed it would only be appropriate to end it with one.

 _Eight. Seven_...

Mikleo should be on the ground right now. Was he okay? Did he wake up?

_Five. Four…_

Sorey saw Symonne raise her head and focus her gaze on him. Observing. Analysing. Making sure he wouldn’t escape. But Sorey wasn’t going anywhere - not now, not ever. It was the only thing he could do for all the people down on the ground, to repay for all troubles they had to endure because of him.

_Three. Two…_

Sorey considered, for the last time, running to the panel to stop everything, or to follow the plan and try to stop the engine.

 _One_.

He didn’t.

_Zero._

* * *

When Mikleo opened his eyes, through the transparent walls of the capsule he saw fireworks. For a second, he wondered why was he in his human body, but thinking was a little bit too complicated as for then. Half-awake, he could only thoughtlessly appreciate the beauty of the fire hanging in the sky, illuminating the world under it.

His fingers, long, human fingers twitched, and he felt a familiar sensation of softness under their tips. And in a split second, he understood.

Even through the deafening explosion everyone could hear the long, shaking, desperate wail of a seraph without his mate.

* * *

If the loud explosion hadn’t been enough to alarm Rose, the screech definitely was.

Not that she couldn’t tell that something was wrong just from looking at the sky. The big, colorful outburst was hardly something she could not notice - but it could mean many, many things, from Sorey’s victory to the beginning of a total annihilation. According to their plan Sorey should have been here by now, but it would be naive to think that all things would go perfectly just like planned. Yet, she has seen an escape pod exiting out of the ship earlier, hasn’t she? There was really nothing to be afraid of.

But the screech persisted, high and loud as ever, and Rose had to face the realization that something has gone wrong. Probably horribly wrong, when we are at it. Fate doesn’t fuck shit up halfway, at least not in her experience.

She didn’t need to tell Alisha to follow her; the princess rushed to the escape pod on the ground as soon as Rose made the first step. If this was any other time, Rose would surely halt to think about this, and maybe try to smooch Alisha a little, just out of the overflow of feeling... But unfortunately, they didn’t have a time for that. Not now.

They had to find out what was going on. And whenever the decision to let Sorey go alone was a good one, or if they have failed spectacularly.

Well, not exactly. The planet was probably saved - the malevolence was probably not released, as for now Rose didn’t feel any more prone to going berserk and killing everybody in her reach, and Alisha didn’t seem to have these kind of desires either.

The thing is, surprisingly, not many people like to lose their friends in a fire. Most of that who do are either psychopaths or have a great deal of valuables to inherit.

Rose was neither of those people. And to be honest, she didn’t have enough memories on Elysia to really miss it if it was gone. Sure, it would be a shame, but what could they do? It happens. That’s life. They would manage.

Sorey, at the other hand… That was a whole different story. If anything has happened to him...

Rose shook her head. No, she couldn’t think this way; she needed to be strong. There was no Lailah, nor Sorey to lead them, so she was all alone with Alisha. The princess would need all the support she could get, and Rose would have to be a monster not to help her.

She had to be strong, no matter how much her gut twisted in anxiety when the ship tilted and then nosedived into the ground right next to them, sending everywhere pieces of colorful plastic, metal and wires.

Alisha yelped and jumped in place; Rose was quick to rush forward and knock them both down, pinning them to the ground as much as it was possible and desperately hoping that no part of the Rolance’s miracle of engineering would decide to spring up and kill them.

A piece of cord struck the place their heads would have been if they kept walking, and Rose congratulated herself on the idea.

She stopped bashing in her own brilliance when she saw the escape pod, which was still a few couple of meters away, fell open -  welcoming right into it the rain of the ship pieces.

“Sorey!” Rose called, but no one answered her.

One last screw flew through the air and hit the escape pod with a loud _clank_.

And finally, finally - someone emerged from the capsule, but Rose needed just a glimpse of the being to know that it was definitely not Sorey. But there wasn’t much other options to choose from, so it had to be…

“Mik-” Rose started, raising up on her elbows - Alisha under her moaned in a really interesting way - but before she could as much as finish the sentence, there was that wailing again.

It was unmistakable now; the sound, high and piercing Rose’s mind, was definitely coming from Mikleo. This cry, it was - it was filling every corner of Rose’s body, and she could feel Alisha tense, too. At this moment she could have sworn that the world stopped; the stars stopped shining, the planet stopped spinning, every air-inhaling thing stopped breathing.

The world halted, focusing on Mikleo - his shaking, unstable form, so hazy and unfocused he looked like his whole body was melting in the moonlight, falling apart like the ship next to him; his voice, too pained, too sharp, too intense-

It was overwhelming.

And Rose couldn’t stop looking. She was stuck, frozen in space and time, only with this high sound reverberating in the air, covering everything like a thick veil of mist-

And as suddenly as it appeared, it stopped.

Rose blinked, clearing out her vision.

A ball of light was hovering over the ground, right next to Mikleo - _Edna_ , Rose recognized immediately. Her light was pulsing, flashing anxiously, nervously-

And they were talking, or at least, Edna was trying to talk to Mikleo, because the seraph didn’t seem to notice her. He just walked - glided - on the ground, too fast to be humanly possible, and Rose needed a second to realize that Mikleo was examining their surroundings.

No, not the surroundings. The ship.

He was calling Sorey, in this weird wail, because they were mated, and it was so desperate, so-

Rose sat up. “No.”

Alisha raised right next to her. “It’s not too late. We need to-”

Mikleo let out the high cry once again; it hit Rose’s head like a punch and on the instinct, she fell to the ground. Through her mind raced a thought, distorted and lone _run_ , but Rose was never the one to run away.

And she has dealt with similar kind of things before.

She quickly changed a few options on her helmet and the sound was cut off, thank gods. Rose moved to Alisha and manually helped her change the settings, too - it was almost painful to focus for too long on anything, like her brain has refused to work, but somehow, Rose’s body turned on the autopilot mode; her hands were moving on her own without the clear instructions coming from the head.

She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t think.

Sorey has been on the ship when it blew up.

Sorey. The person she was supposed to protect. The boy too light-headed to be normal, and too idealistic to live in the place he was born. The person she was friends with, and who she didn’t even think to say goodbye to.

Sorey always came back.

He had to be there. He had to, somehow, be in the rubble, intact and alive, all well and okay; it was _Sorey_ , for fuck’s sake. He always found a way around a problem. He wouldn’t leave them like that.

If he did… If he did, then Rose would physically drag him out of the heaven, where he was probably all happily resting with puppies and sunshines and she would bring the bastard back to life, and kill him again. And again. And again, until Sorey would realize how big of an idiot he was.

Mikleo was still searching, his mouth - if it could even be called that, being all mangled and disfigured - his mouth was still open, the scream still vibrating in the air, and even though Rose couldn’t hear it anymore, it still made her wince.

She gestured towards Alisha and without a word needed, they both directed theirs steps towards the ball of light which was Edna, looking under their feet as to not step on some part that, coincidentally, could be explosive even after hitting the ground from a good height. Rose didn’t trust Rolance’s ships as to not include some godforsaken mines which would activate only when stepped on after the ship’s fatal crash. You could say all you want about Rolance’s engineers, but they were inventive creatures, for better or worse. (Usually worse.)

And for all of you who think that it wasn’t a good time to think about that, with Sorey being possibly dead and all: it absolutely was. The matter of Sorey’s life was not as important as one might think in these circumstances. As brutal as it may sound, most humans care more about their own self preservation when in crisis - it is simpler, quicker, and most of all doesn’t create an existential anguish which could lead to not being able to run away from a dinosaur or any other predator the small mammal brain may think of. Evolution is merciless.

But let’s get back to Rose and Alisha.

They didn’t dare to go anywhere near Mikleo and instead decided to walk around him, as far as it was possible, and tried to look fairly non-threatening as they walked to Edna.

“What’s going on?” Rose asked in a hushed tone. (God bless the speaker systems which allowed her to talk while not having to listen to her surroundings.)

Edna’s light pulsed. _You were supposed to save him and his mate._

“Well, we are not exactly pleased about the situation either, you know?” Rose snapped. “Just tell us what we can do to help.”

Edna was quiet for a while. If the seraph had eyes, Rose would think that she was regarding them - it was hard to say when a person was a blob of light.

Rose made a small step to Alisha’s side.

 _He is grieving_ , Edna’s voice appeared in Rose’s thoughts. _Searching. He can’t feel his mate and he is lost. It all has happened too fast and it hurts his mind_.

“He can’t feel Sorey?” Alisha repeated. “But… You said that he would feel everything that Sorey feels, that they would be connected at all times.”

From the corner of her eye, Rose caught a glimpse of the seraphim floating afar - they were pulsing, like Edna was - a multitude of colours lightening up the dark. They were coming closer, probably alarmed by Mikelo’s call.

And the ship falling off the sky, but that detail was fairly obvious.

Mikleo was still circling through the rubble, shining in a white light, sharper than everyone else’s combined.

Wherever Sorey was, he had to see it. He had to hear Mikleo’s voice.

So why wasn’t he doing anything? Why wasn’t he crawling out from pieces of metal and revealing himself in a super heroic fashion he liked so much?

Why wasn’t he _doing_ anything?!

Rose was preparing to speak up when something changed.

Mikleo stopped. The seraph kneeled - or at least lowered himself to the ground level - and with one strong movement threw away a piece of something that could have been a fragment of a wall, which landed a little too close for comfort.

But the movement itself wasn’t what piqued Rose’s interest.

However the mangled piece of a dark spacesuit, unmistakable even in the middle of the night, bathed in something that uncomfortably resembled a whole lot of strawberry jam, did.

Rose had a feeling it, in fact, wasn’t a strawberry jam.

Mikleo screamed.

* * *

Sorey had hoped that dying would hurt much less.

...or that’s what he wanted to say, but truth be told, he couldn’t feel anything. Which probably was more alarming than if he had to scream out in pain. If that was the case, he could probably hope that he wasn’t quite dead yet.

Well… it was probably safe to assume that he was, in fact, quite dead.

Surprisingly so, the awareness of this - let’s not be afraid to say it - fact, didn’t spring any sudden reaction in him. Emotions, being a hormonal reaction chained to his brain, and thus, body, couldn’t reach him here. His body, as Mikleo, Rose, Alisha and everyone else within a hearing range knew, was torn into pieces and was almost beyond recognition.

Not so handsome now, huh?

But Sorey didn’t know about that. How could he? He was floating in the darkness, without any feeling surrounding him (the sense of feel is also quite connected to the body), and without much regret.

Was this how Mikleo has been feeling all this time?

No, probably not. That would be undermining all things Mikleo did for Sorey. And all things that have happened between the two of them.

Speaking of which… Was Mikleo okay? Did Sorey’s action (it was way too random to call this a plan) has brought the effect Sorey wanted? It would really be off-putting to find out that he had heroically let himself be killed only to make things worse. Which, taking Sorey’s luck until now into account, wouldn’t be especially surprising.

Well, he had no way to know that now, didn’t he? One of the biggest disadvantages of being dead must have been to be left unaware of the world of living - what was happening, who had won the latest Miss Universe, that sort of thing. Floating in the darkness was not nearly as exciting.

Was he supposed to be doing something? Reflecting on his past, doing some examination of conscience…?

Sorey wasn’t expecting being dead would turn out to be so boring.

And, as if hearing his thoughts, something decided to happen.

In a blink of an eye - that Sorey didn’t have - the darkness folded, twisted and suddenly stopped existing, converted into a place that Sorey could more or less identify. You could say he was surprised if, you know, he actually could feel anything. Now the mild acknowledgment had to suffice.

“Hello,” Sorey said to a bored-looking receptionist at the desk. The furniture and the woman were the only objects present in what appeared to be a sea of whiteness, which made Sorey wonder where was the soothing reggae music coming from.

The receptionist didn’t move. Sorey was just about to repeat his words when the woman muttered an uninterested:

“Name.”

Sorey was struck by the uninterest in her voice. It wasn’t a simple lack of interest, oh no; it was the opposite of interest, a black hole of interest, a pure talent in uninterest. This woman was a master of disinterest, levelling it to the meaning of the true art of aloofness. What could Sorey do in the face of such virtuosity other than gave in?

“It’s Sorey,” Sorey replied, uninterested.

The woman reached under the desk and in her hand materialized what looked like an impressively big book bound in leather, one of these Official and Important-looking ones, but Sorey wasn’t interested in looking deeper into it.

“Sorey, Sorey, S-o-r-e-y…” the woman muttered under her breath, turning the pages uninterestingly. “Here it is. Prince Sorey… Oh, killed just a year before the fall of the Rolance Empire, how ironic…”

“What?”

The receptionist ignored him.

“Death by being exploded and later crushed by the mass of the spaceship… Is that correct?”

“Uh,” replied Sorey. “Probably?”

“Great. I will just need your signature here,” the woman said, pushing the enormous tome to him and thrusting some sort of a writing accessory to his hand. Sorey supposed it was for writing, albeit it looked more like one of the torture instruments his father liked so much.

Sorey looked down at the page, but couldn’t make sense of all these scribbles. They didn’t seem to be in any order whatsoever, but then again, it could be just Sorey’s inexperience with bureaucracy.

Sorey signed the page in the first free place he could see.

The pen in his hand exploded in the stream of confetti.

“Congratulations!” the receptionist muttered. “You are our oh-so-lucky customer number… Let me check… Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just go.”

Sorey blinked sheepishly. “What?”

“Look,” the receptionist wrested the book and the pen out of his hands, “I’m just trying to do my job, okay? Just take a candy and go.”

Sorey tried to ask, but the candy which was thrown into his mouth with a surprising accuracy stopped him from making the sense out of this all.

“Please don’t forget to rate your experience with our service in our mobile app,” said the receptionist, coming back to her book.

And then, it started to _hurt_.

* * *

Somewhere in space, and specifically on a planet B849-C in Glenwood Galaxy, knew commonly as Elysia, something quite extraordinary happened.

Sorey’s heart started.

The fact that the heart was quite completely mashed into a pinkish, glistening mass was visibly not bothering the said organ. As a big “fuck you” to the world of science, it decided to beat again. Once.

Twice.

And it stopped again.

And usually, that wouldn’t be a much of a deal, as no one would be able to record that such cheeky incident has happened at all. But Sorey had a seraph mate.

A seraph mate, who _felt_ his heart move.

A seraph mate, who froze, and in a second every cell in his body was damn set on keeping Sorey alive.

So, you know. Sorey was in the good hands. Or in this case, pseudopodia.

* * *

“...he going to wake up?”

“Rose! What if he can hear you? And of course he’s going to wake up, he just needs a little bit more time to recover.”

“He definitely can’t hear me, don’t worry. I mean, it would be awfully convenient if he just woke up when we started talking about him, right? He is sleeping like a log, look.”

A finger dug into the soft skin of Sorey’s cheek. It was a weird sensation, as if his whole body has become suddenly way more sensitive than ever before; it was tingling, a little bit tickling, and most of all, it _felt_. Which was way more than Sorey has expected.

There was a fleeting glimpse of disinterest in his mind as he opened his eyes.

The light was enough to make him close them immediately, but that was enough for people around him.

“Oh my god, he moved!”

“You are sure that this wasn’t just another of these electroshocks?”

“No, no, look - there was a jump in his heart rate! He woke up!”

“So why isn’t he saying anything?”

“I am,” Sorey grunted. His throat was dry, as if he had never used it before.

He made a second attempt at opening his eyes and this time managed to hold his stare long enough to catch a glimpse of red, blonde and in the corner a little bit further away, white, but it was unfocused and… on the roof? Something didn’t quite add up here. He blinked and the vision cleared a bit, but stubbornly stayed upside down.

He opened his mouth, coughed up some yellow goop and asked: “Why is everything flipped?”

“Wait a minute,” a familiar voice said, and after few confusing seconds the image before Sorey’s eyes obediently turned, making the room look definitely more normal.

“Thanks, eh…” Sorey’s head turned to the side, and through his newly repaired eyes saw the screen with the image of…”...Lailah?”

“Hello!” Lailah sent him her usual smile. “How are you feeling?”

The muscles in Sorey’s neck has started to hurt, his eyes were sore, his throat was dry and the feeling of the cloth over him and the bedsheet under him was like sandpaper on his skin.

“Better than expected,” Sorey replied. And, after a second: “You are still alive?”

“I have never died to begin with,” Lailah chirped. “I am uploaded to the cloud, remember? I was a part of the programme of your suits, so I managed to send Rose instructions on how to bring me back to what you call normal.”

Sorey nodded experimentally, just to see if he could, and though his nerves seemed to be convinced that he was laying on a bed made of needles on fire and also in hell, it was surprisingly easy and smooth to move.

“You and I are pretty similar, you know,” Lailah continued, clasping her hands together. “I mean, we managed to find enough of your body fragments to recreate your body, more or less. Good thing your brain was not as utterly destroyed as we had thought at first! It’s almost like someone didn’t want to destroy it.”

If Sorey would be more awake right now, he might have remembered the way Symonne looked at him with a shade of respect before. But he didn’t. Some things are not meant to be remembered, and Sorey would never connect the dots. Not that he needed to.

Lailah continued to babble: “It was a bit rushed so we _might_ have skipped some less important things, but I would say that it was an overall success.”

Lailah smiled sweetly, but even that couldn’t quite calm down Sorey’s part of consciousness which very loudly panicked about losing some part of his biological functions which the android would surely deem not a priority, but was _kind of_ Sorey’s priority with the given context.

He swallowed. “So, my vision…”

“Your retina wasn’t flipping the image correctly. Like with a toddler! You are _like new_ , you know that?” Lailah giggled.

“So, it worked,” said Rose, who, as Sorey noticed just now, was sitting on a chair right next to his bed, with Alisha at her side.

With Rose and Alisha here, that explained the flashes of red and blonde he caught a glimpse of, but with Lailah inside the machine it still left one white-haired unaccounted person in the room.

Sorey took in a breath, turned his head sharply - and found himself face to face with Dezel leaning against the wall.

“What?” Dezel growled.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I felt your disappointment.” Dezel shifted in place, probably offended, but Sorey didn’t exactly care at that moment.

“Why are you here?”

“I am supposed to watch over you and assure that you have everything you need to be able to heal as soon as possible,” Dezel explained in a monotone voice.  “You are lucky there were accomodations ready for you in Elysia. It would be a pain to have to organise the optimal conditions for humans in a rush.”

“Oh,” Sorey replied. “So… you are like an emissary here?”

“You could call it that, yes.”

“That’s… Okay. Fine. Yes.” Sorey nodded, trying to look as interested as he could despite not being interested in any of these political nuances. He tried to bring from the depths of his memories the lesson he had on the subject of diplomacy. “So, uh… It’s… Really fortunate that you…”

“Oh, cut the crap.” Alisha stood up with a suddenness that startled everyone, including Sorey, who almost fell out of his bed despite all the weird devices that were strapped to his body. “Sorey, he is here. Mikleo is here. He is waiting for you - has been since you… Since your body died.” Her eyes were unyielding even if her voice shook. “But he was too... emotional, making it nearly impossible to do anything to you, and we had to put him down.”

Sorey had a bad feeling about this. “When you say you put him down, you mean that…”

“Gods, no.” Alisha shook her head. “He is sleeping. Or is just in lethargy, it is hard to tell with the seraphim. He wouldn’t even let us come close to you, you know. But one thing is clear.” She straightened her spine like a soldier. “He needs you.”

As she spoke, something else has woken up in Sorey - a voice, or just a feeling or being called, subtle yet persistent under his skin.

Something like an understanding passed between them.

Sorey nodded.

And then Alisha threw a chair on the wall while Sorey ripped off the tools strapped to his body and sprinted out of the room.

* * *

Sorey’s bare feet were slapping on the cold floor. The air was pricking in his lungs, but he couldn’t care; the feeling in his chest was too overwhelming to let him stop. His body was not exactly listening to his orders, but that didn’t matter when he knew that Mikleo was here, close, just there.

Mikleo, who wanted to save him.

Mikleo, who _he_ had saved.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him the directions; he run, run, run, until he _knew_.

And miraculously, yet not surprisingly at all, from the corner emerged a white-haired, glistening being, running as fast as Sorey did.

They met halfway.

Their mouths found each other as naturally if they did that a million times before. Unlike before, however, Sorey didn't feel like drowning.

Mikleo was melting under Sorey’s touch, glistening, he was wet to touch and he was absolutely beautiful.

Sorey’s earrings - these feathery, soft ones which he had given to Mikleo, brushed Sorey’s cheek when they broke the kiss, but still stubbornly stayed in each other’s arms, as if they feared the other might disappear into a thin air.

But Sorey was sure no force in the universe could now tear them apart.

“I love you,” Sorey murmured into Mikleo’s hair.

“I know,” Mikleo replied.

And over the horizon, the sun rose.

* * *

Somewhere in space, a small, completely insignificant planet was floating in a chaotic manner in which only planets can.

And on that planet, a human called Sorey decided to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then Sorey got a skin cancer and died the end
> 
> also you can probably exactly pinpoint the moment in which I gave up on the plot
> 
> anyway uh hope you enjoyed please leave a comment if you did


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